


Stand Apart

by Endlessnotebooks



Series: Rise and Stand Tall, Our Day is Yet to Come [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Aftermath of Avengers: Infinity War, And a great mom, Concurrent counterpart, F/M, Found Family, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, I promise, I will try not to bash characters, May Parker is a good friend, May has a kid, Pepper and May will be the Mom Squad, Pepper has a kid, Steve Gets Therapy, Team Dynamics, Team works through their shit, eventually
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-05 00:58:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 22,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15852984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Endlessnotebooks/pseuds/Endlessnotebooks
Summary: Back when the Avengers Initiative first formed, Tony was sure he was to work on a case by case basis with the extraordinary individuals in front of him. He would stand apart from them, a separate, private entity.He wishes that had been the case then, because it would be easier to learn to do it now.Runs concurrent toStand Alone.





	1. Chapter 1

Tony’s return to Earth two weeks after Thanos’ snap was met with hope from the people. They were all crying out that “Iron Man had come back to save them.”

How was he supposed to save them when the ashes of his fucking kid were laying in a pile on a far-off planet, indistinguishable from the dirt and grime there? How was he supposed to save the world when he hadn’t been able to save May’s child? He hadn’t been able to save Spider-Man. He hadn’t been able to save Peter.

FRIDAY came back online then, making comments about a panic attack and calling for Pepper. No one answered, so she started filtering through contacts until Rhodey answered. It didn’t take long for him to decide to run down and meet Tony where he was in the Tower. “Tones, oh my god, Tony I’m so sorry.”

“What? Who was it?” Tony felt dread in the pit of his stomach. “Not Pepper. Rhodey, where’s Pepper?”

“Pepper’s okay, but it got Happy. And Vision’s gone too, but he was killed by Thanos.” Rhodey shook his head. He walked towards him and pulled him to the couch. “We tried so hard, but… We couldn’t stop him. I’m so sorry, Tony.”

Tony shook his head, letting the armor disengage. “The kid…”

Rhodey’s face went blank, and he quickly pulled Tony into a hug. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault.”

“If I had done something, anything, sooner, then I could have saved him. Don’t give me the ‘it’s not your fault’ bull, because we both know I could have come up with _something_.”

“You couldn’t have, Tones. You didn’t have anything concrete on what type of threat it was, or when it was going to come. You had a team that wasn’t listening. You were so limited on this, that it’s incredible what you did come up with.

“Besides. We’ll get them back. The snap just erased them, yeah? We’ll find a way to bring them back.”

Tony wished he could be so optimistic.

*

‘Getting them back’ meant working with Rogers and crew – something Tony was really not excited about. The only good news was that Ross had gotten dusted in the Snap as well, so they didn’t have him up their ass about every minor decision they wanted to make.

Rogers had settled back into the Compound fairly well – minus the tension whenever he and Tony were in the same room for longer than a few minutes – and had resumed a sort-of leadership role. The first few weeks post-snap had been a mix for Tony of working on his suit, holding on tighter and tighter to Pepper and Rhodey, and trying to help with clean-up following Thanos’ actions. The overgrown grape had disappeared on them, and it frustrated Tony to no end.

Steve had settled on focusing on Thanos. He said if they found him, they could get the gauntlet, bring everybody back, and then they could worry about killing him. Tony was pretty sure that was a terrible idea – Thanos would just come back for the gauntlet. Unless they could find a way to destroy at least one of the stones (preferably all of them, but he wasn’t going to push his luck) before Thanos could get the gauntlet, but after they had brought everyone back. He didn’t know how plausible that was, but he was going to run with it.

Anything. Anything to not have to look the kid’s aunt in the eye and say she would never see him again. Anything to be able to make good on his oath to bring the kid back.

_Mister Stark I don’t wanna go! I don’t wanna go!_

He shouldn’t have had to.

*

They had all lost someone, but Clint wondered who it was Stark had lost. That look – haunted, harangued by nightmarish visions, weighted down with the torture of something that repeated itself in your mind and sight whether your eyes were closed or not – that came from someone close.

“Pepper made it out, didn’t she?”

Tony nodded. “She’s fine.”

They were alone in the lab. Clint had snuck in through the vents, surprised to find Stark just staring at a screen with a suit design on it. It looked like it was for that spider guy from Berlin.

“Who was it?”

Tony looked at him. “What do you mean?”

“Someone died.” He almost laughed at Tony’s look – bland and disinterested, mostly, but with a hint of that snark he knew Tony so well for. “I mean someone close to you.”

“And what gave you that deduction?”

“I’m not a master spy for nothing. Where Nat likes subtlety, I push a bit and figure it out from context clues.”

“You sound like a high school English teacher.”

“Deflection.” Clint started looking for something with alcohol in it. Maybe that would help. “For the record, it was my youngest. And Laura. I don’t know what I’m going to do about the kids, but I’ll figure it out.”

“Have them come here. We can keep them safer here.”

Clint turned, shocked the offer was made after everything, but also not. For all his mistakes and misguided attempts to help, Tony had always been generous. Clint was hard on him at the Raft – he knew it was out of Tony’s hands, but he had been there and had just taken the criticism and the vitriol without much complaint and only minimal defense. He would take the words back, but there wasn’t much he could do at this point.

“I’m serious, Clint. I’ll even send out a plane to get them. There’s no way we’re leaving them unprotected with Thanos on the loose.”

“You lost a kid. You lost your kid.” Clint looked at the suit. “The spider dude – he was yours.”

“No, he wasn’t. He was… He was just a close friend? I don’t know. I was just mentoring him, but…”

“He was yours in every way that counted.” Clint moved forward and leaned on the table. “And you lost him.”

“Yeah, I get it. I fucked up.”

“I didn’t mean it like that, and you know it.” Clint pushed up from his seat. “Either way, the conversation’s getting heavy. I want something to drink.”

“I don’t have anything here. Believe me, if I did I’d be passed out already.”

“You even quit drinking for him. Damn. When we get everyone back, I gotta meet this kid.”

Tony nodded, looking grim. “Maybe. He’d probably start bouncing off the walls at meeting the Avengers. Wouldn’t even hold it against you, all the shit that went down in Germany.”

“Oh, god, I hope so.” Clint laughed. “Steve dropped a jetway on him.”

“He pulled a man that tried repeatedly to kill him out of a fire. I think Steve’ll be fine.”

Well, they could hope the kid was still something close to the ray of sunshine he once had been.  

*

Rhodey sighed when he found Tony, having worked himself into unconsciousness over his table.

“God, Tones.” He lifted him up, feeling the strain in his braces. He would have to check them himself later, if he didn’t ask Tony.

He wasn’t sure he could ask Tony, after everything he had been through. But, if it might help him cope, then he absolutely would. Something told Rhodey, though, that it would be better if he helped his friend some other way. If he found a way to distract Tony or focus him on something like taking down Thanos – a tangible goal, something that Tony would take to if Rhodey could just get him over this initial hurdle. They were going to bring everybody back. He couldn’t let Tony suffer like that, not if he could do something about it.

He got him to his bedroom, FRIDAY giving him help along the way. When he laid Tony down, though, he found a hand bunched into his shirt. Oh well. It wasn’t the first time he had carried Tony into bed only to be dragged into it with him as comfort, and it wouldn’t be the last.

He was glad, though, that this time he didn’t have to smell booze.

*

Tony was insistent on going to talk to May Parker the next day, and Rhodey was equally insistent on following him there and being emotional support for him.

May was quiet when she heard. She wasn’t looking at either of them, making it hard for Rhodey to prepare for Tony’s full body flinch when May started to sob.

“I thought that was it.” She shook her head. “He didn’t come home from the field trip, no one had seen him… God, he was so reckless.”

“May, I’m so sorry.”

“No.” She stood up, heading to the kitchen and getting glasses of water. “No. You don’t get to be sorry. It’s not your fault. You didn’t do this to him – if you’re still alive, that means that whatever that Snap you told me about, it _was_ random, meaning he would have died if he were here, anyway.” Rhodey knew he liked the sound of this woman when Peter had talked about her. She sounded like his mother – made of steel and fiercely practical. She set the water down, and her eyes softened. “You shouldn’t be alone right now, though.”

She was a nurse, if Rhodey remembered. She had probably consoled several grieving families. She probably saw something in Tony he didn’t.

“I’m with him, and so’s Pep. The other Avengers are staying in the tower, too.”

May nodded, keeping her eyes on Tony. “I’m here, if you ever need. I know we have never been close, but we both knew Peter pretty well. Sometimes being with someone who remembers the person can help ease the pain a bit.”

Tony choked on his own sob, muttered apologies following. May reached a hand out, placing it on his shoulder in a way that was so gentle and motherly, Rhodey was taken aback. It had been so long between them, but this was another family member lost. Another person ripped from him by someone else’s hand.

Tony leaned into the touch in a way Rhodey had ever seen him do with two people. Rhodey’s own mother, when she caught him in the haze that usually followed his fifth or sixth consecutive all-nighter, crying quietly and to himself about his dead mother. He had come home with Rhodey that winter break, like he often did, but it was still a fresh wound, and Rhodey hadn’t meant to walk in on the moment. His friend, though, had been vulnerable with his mother, and that’s when Rhodey knew it was the right choice to drag the kid off campus during breaks all those times.

The second time was with Ana Jarvis, at her husband’s funeral. She had put a hand on his shoulder, muttered something to him that had him laughing through the tears, and then swatted the back of his head with a demand that he promise not to drink that day. He hadn’t, and Rhodey had been extremely proud of him.

Tony hadn’t had any alcohol pass his lips this time, either, and there was just as much pride in his heart when he realized that Tony’s promise to himself to be better even extended beyond Peter.

“Thank you.” Rhodey looked up at May, not sure what all he was thanking her for. It wasn’t just for comforting Tony, or for not letting him blame himself, or even for the offer of solace. It was all of those things and none of them, and while Rhodey didn’t normally like ambiguity, he was more than willing to let it slide just this once, if it meant helping out his best friend.

*

Pepper didn’t know what to do to help Tony. She wanted to help, and what she did in the meantime was to keep the Rogues as far from him as she could as often as possible, but that only went so far. He still had nightmares that had him waking up yelling for Peter and grabbing at the air. On a few occasions, he had grabbed Pepper while still in the nightmare and held her so tightly, often times crying as he did, that she had to wonder if Tony would ever be able to recover from having the kid die in his arms.

It wasn’t a question she particularly liked thinking about, but she knew it was a necessary thing to consider. He had overcome a lot in the years she had known him. She had seen him claw and climb his way out of Howard Stark’s shadow (through drugs, alcohol, and partying, but he did it), had seen him turn his company around and work his way out of the mess that had been his health after Afghanistan. She saw him face someone he had trusted and unflinchingly deliver the blow that was meant to kill him, even knowing it might take Tony himself with it.

He had faced the Chitauri in New York, had faced Ultron, had lost JARVIS, had lost his team. He bounced back from so much, but every time, there was a small part of her that wondered ‘Is this the last time?’. Would he never recover from the latest injury or action against him? Would he lose his life on the field? Would he come back to her as Tony, or as the broken man she saw in him whenever his nightmares woke him up?

Sighing, she pulled him close. “Tony, you need to talk to someone. Even if it’s just me, or Rhodey.”

Tony nodded. “Tomorrow. I promise.”

He made good on that promise at breakfast, and the two of them spent time thinking of all they had lost.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even in the aftermath of half the world disappearing, humanity keeps moving forward.

Tony wasn’t sure he was ready for this. It was too early in the morning for this shit, and he hadn’t gotten much sleep – _Mister Stark, please. Mister Stark, I don’t feel so good. Mister Stark, Mister Stark, Mister Stark –_ yet here he was, Steve Rogers, standing in front of him.

“We need to talk, Tony.”

“No, we don’t. We need to work together, we don’t need to be friends.”

“We should still talk. I know you don’t like my plan, but we won’t come up with something good unless all of us are working together.”

“Rogers, your plan is basically just go at him and hope for the best. I’ve lost too much for that to be an option. We need to plan contingencies, we need to have back-up plans for our back-up plans. But most of all, we can’t rely on that strategy when it’s what got us here in the first place.”

_“I have a plan. Attack.”_

“We’ve all lost someone.”

“You think I don’t know that? He died in my arms, Steve. And that damn magician… I can’t believe you think I don’t know we all lost someone, when I lost Pet-“ Tony choked on the name. If he couldn’t let himself be rational, he would have to rely on plain old fury. “I can’t let this fail, Rogers. I’m bringing them back, no matter what. I don’t care if I lose my fucking life, I’m not letting my legacy be that a _kid_ followed me into a battle we _lost_. I’m not taking him from his aunt like that. I’m not letting him go without trying to get him back.”

Steve shook his head. “There’s only so much we can do. Plans only work on paper.”

“But it’s better to have an idea, an attempt at coordinating an attack.”

Steve was quiet. “Why’d you take a kid into that fight?”

“I didn’t. I tried to send him home. When Strange and I got on that ship, he followed and stowed away until we were too far away for us to get him back to Earth safely.

“Damn kid was brilliant with everything but keeping himself alive.”

Tony sighed, not even granting Steve the courtesy of looking back at him. Therapist be damned, he was going to keep avoiding this problem until he had a solution for it. If he was without a team for two years and managed, he’d pull it off this time too. He had Rhodey, and that was all he was going to let himself need.

*

Therapist notwithstanding, Rhodey wasn’t a fan of that plan either. He didn’t want Tony avoiding allies, thereby potentially alienating them.

“Besides, it’s not healthy.” Rhodey put a hand on his shoulder. “You can’t keep closing yourself off.”

Tony shook his head.

_Three months. Three months since Peter had fallen apart in his **arms**._

Despite the weekly dinners, he could still barely look May in the eye. He didn’t think he would be able to until the day he put that kid back in her arms.

“Rhodey, I don’t care at this point.” He shook his head. “I got a kid killed.

“God, _god!_ I’m every bit the fucking failure I always thought!”

“Don’t say that about yourself.”

Rhodey’s voice was hard and calm, like it had been once in college, when Tony had first let loose a string of self-deprecating remarks in a drunken haze. It had been two months into the semester, and Rhodey had walked in on Howard Stark berating Tony and calling him every name under the sun. Rhodey had waited for Howard to leave before saying anything, and Tony had tried to cover up for his dad in garbled sounds and a harsh whisper. Rhodey had ignored him, though, as far as Tony could tell, because afterward he had taken to hating on Howard just as much as Tony did.

Rhodey patted his head. “Come on, we’ve got a dinner to go to. I already talked to May, and she said to bring Pep, too.”

*

The dinner started a bit awkward. Pepper, for all her grace, wasn’t sure how to approach a dinner with a grieving mother (May had been, Peter had mentioned once, his mother in every sense of the word since he was four) when it didn’t involve a charity ball or some kind of memorial gala. She was a bit detached from it, then, and she was wearing the mask of a successful CEO.  

But then May mentioned a story from when Peter was a little kid, and the photo albums came out. The four of them started laughing at stories of each other and of Peter from when all of them were young enough to think their parents were magic and could solve the world’s problems. By the end of the night, Tony left with an album under his arm, a promise to come back (with Rhodey and Pepper, of course) and return it after scanning them into his own hard-drive back home.

Rhodey threw an arm around Tony’s shoulders. “I always forget she’s not like… an old lady aunt, but a cool aunt.”

“Peter would have shot you in the foot for saying that.”

“No he wouldn’t, Tones.” Rhodey mussed his hair. It’s something he’d been doing more as he tried to drag Tony out of his shell, and Tony hated to admit just how much he likes it. “He was too nice.”

 _Was._ Tony refused to let it show, how badly hearing the past tense affected him. He was going home to people he didn’t get along with, but that he had to work with, and it wasn’t something he was ready for yet. It wasn’t something he thought he’d ever be ready for. He understood working with people you didn’t like, or didn’t agree with, or didn’t get along with. There was something hostile, though, in the way the others were trying to handle Thanos. They all lost someone, but Tony had to wonder how smart it was to rely on rage and rage alone to fight this threat.

“Tony, I know he meant a lot to you. I’m sorry you lost so much.”

Tony nodded. “Thanks.”

Rhodey put an arm around him. “We’re going to get him back. You’ve got me on this, you’ve got Banner on this. You’ve got the princess of Wakanda on this. Four of the brightest minds on Earth.”

“Yeah.” Tony smiled. “Yeah. I’ve got that going for me.

“Come on, Honeybear. We’ve got work to do.”

“I don’t suppose we’re going to be using our Rogue Avenger friends in this are we?”

Tony considered it. “Not for right now. First, we have to figure out what we’re going to do about finding the purple prick, then we can worry about planning.”

“There’s the Tones I know.” Rhodey pulled him into a hug. Pepper smiled from where she was walking beside them towards the car. “Welcome back, Genius-bar.”

“I resent being compared to _Apple._ ”

“Why’d you think I said it?” Rhodey smiled at him. “Come on. We’ve got stuff to do.”

*

May had wanted to resent Tony Stark for what had happened to Peter, she really did.

But she had seen her coworkers disappear. She had seen heroes – people who had fought Thanos and should have, if he were picking, gone away too – standing tall after the Snap. It had been random, her rational mind whispered, as much as her emotions wanted to take over and yell at Tony Stark and blame him for Peter not coming back, the fact of the matter was that she didn’t even know Peter had disappeared until the day Tony came back.

She had seen the footage of Spider-Man in the park. She knew he had gone into space with Tony, likely of his own volition.

So, instead of yelling and screaming at him for getting her child killed, she welcomed him into her home, and she didn’t regret it. It was nice to grieve with somebody.

*

Clint sat across from Tony in the quinjet as they left for another relief mission.

“You’re doing better.”

“I talked to the kid’s aunt.”

He nodded, glancing towards the front where everyone was occupying themselves, giving Tony and Rhodey a wide berth. For all the work they had done, the wounds and scars of the Civil War, and then of Tony’s perceived absence during the showdown with Thanos had left their mark.

Clint finaly spoke again. “Thank you. Not just for bringing the kids out, but for getting them enrolled in that school.

“It means a lot.”

Tony waved a hand at him. “Kids are the future. We need to make sure they get a good education.”

“Were you and Pepper ever going to have any?”

“I wanted to, but she didn’t. I get it, though.”

Clint pat his shoulder. “Don’t give up on it yet, man. Maybe after this clusterfuck is over.”

Tony nodded. “Maybe.”

*

To say Tony and Pepper never had time for each other was an understatement. They had a lot of time with and for each other, even in the aftermath of Thanos. The stress of their respective jobs was, more often than not, what actually got in the way of their relationship. Now, though, in the aftermath of the snap, they were making more and more time. The rule they had tried to establish years ago – no shop talk on dates or when they’re having a more romantic evening – had been kept more religiously by the both of them.

Tony was happier for it, and that made Pepper’s heart sing. She loved the man, and knowing he was starting to heal, even the slightest bit, from the litany of pains that had been hitting him from all sides the last few years settled something in her and in their relationship. He was struggling with Peter, still, but she wasn’t surprised. She had pushed that aside, however, for the evening. They had been fairly diligent, but she remembered their haste the first night he had been back. How, even through his sadness and mourning, he had been so pleased and overjoyed to see her, to know she was  _alive_ , they had lost themselves in each other.

She was fairly sure that was the night that led to their situation now. She had the test sitting in her hand, and Tony was due home in moments. She had told him, repeatedly, not to have anyone over for this.

She was still relieved when he walked through the door alone. He walked over, kissing her cheek and stumbling back when she jumped at him, her arms around his neck. “Tony…”

She almost didn’t want to look him in the eye. Would it hurt him, that they were expecting so soon after Peter had died? Would he be disappointed in the timing?

Only one way to find out.

“I’m pregnant.”

*  
Tony froze when he heard that, every part of his body going into warp speed. He forced himself to calm down, though, holding Pepper tightly to him. “Oh my god, oh my god.”

Pepper detached herself from him, looking at him for a reaction.

“Tony, I’m pregnant.”

She seemed happy, but he remembered that conversation a few months prior in the park, when everything had been going okay.

“If you don’t want to keep it, I understand.”

Her face fell. “Tony, this is a decision for the both of us to make.

“Are you okay?”

Tony swallowed the urge to bolt out of there, ignored the pain in his left arm. “I’m over the moon about this Pepper. Nothing would make me happier than to raise a child with you.

“But I know that you don’t want to, or didn’t want to, I guess. I don’t want you forcing yourself into this for me.”

Pepper put a hand to the side of his face. “Tony, if I weren’t happy about this, you would know. That’s how we’ve always been.”

Tony nodded.

“We’re having a baby, Tony.”

And yeah, Peter wasn’t there to be the big brother kind of figure he had always hoped. He was broken in more ways than one, and he had lost Peter to a villain with a sick sense of a savior complex. But more than that, Tony was excited. He could feel it like he hadn’t felt it in years, the child like joy that meant his heart was beating a little faster, his head was a little lighter from the idea of it, and he couldn’t fight the urge to smile.

He and Pepper were having a baby.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe the whole baby arc is too soon. Sue me. I have plans for this story, though, and Morgan Stark is kinda important for later character development stuff. 
> 
> [Come say hi!](putmymusiconshuffleidareyou.tumblr.com) I post about my fandoms, rarely I post about my writing, and sometimes I post about guitar.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony is working really hard at letting himself rely on his support network. He's getting better at it, too.

Tony and Pepper agreed that, other than Rhodey, it would be best to keep the pregnancy quiet, at least for a while, but Clint caught on pretty quick.

“She’s pregnant, isn’t she?”

Tony debated playing dumb, but knew the archer would see through it, even if he pretended not to. “We want it kept on the down-low, Birdbrain.”

Clint raised his hands in the air. “I figured. Just wanted to say congratulations. You guys deserve it; you’ve been through a lot the last few years.”

“Thanks.” Tony swallowed his sarcastic retort, swallowed the small whisps of residual anger, and nodded. “Thanks, Clint.”

“Oh, I’m Clint, now!” He got a stupid look on his face. “Must’ve gotten through to that heart of yours, or something!”

Tony threw a light punch into Clint’s shoulder, scowling as he continued teasing Tony. Yeah, yeah. All in good fun, and all that jazz.

Maybe he could forgive some of them.

_The shield, the crunch of his arm underneath it._

_The child Pepper was carrying that had almost never come to pass because of that shield._

_The feeling of having that much pressure on his already battered chest. Of the artificial sternum being dented inward._

There were still some that he thought it safe to stay away from.

*

Tony did his best to tend to each and every need Pepper mentioned. He started matching his schedule to hers, going to every meeting it would be easier for him to be at than her, doing anything and everything she might have required.

Which is why it kind of made sense, when after two weeks, she sat him down and told him to let her have some space.

“Tony, I appreciate what you’re doing. But, if we’re keeping this under wraps, you have to promise me that you’ll back off a bit, okay? The board is getting freaked out that you’re coming to meetings. One of them actually asked me if you were dying again.”

It was only the endless tact on Pepper’s part and the sheer guilt on Tony’s that kept them from addressing the ‘again’ part of that sentence.

“I promise, okay. I just…” He put a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll give you space. I’m so excited for this child.”

She kissed his cheek. “I know. And you can do all you want at home, but during the workday, at least until it’s a bit closer to the due date, I want the space and autonomy I’ve always had.”

“Absolutely.”

She stood up. “I’m going to grab something to eat. You want anything?”

“No, thanks.” He was shrewd enough not to stop her and offer to make it himself, which she appreciated.

Pepper lifted a brow. “FRIDAY, when was the last time Tony ate?”

“Four hours ago, Miss Potts.”

Pepper almost seemed impressed. “I’m still making you a turkey sandwich. You’re eating something, if only because you’re finally getting back on a healthy schedule.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Tony smirked. “I can feel the love, you know. In that whole implication I was ever on a healthy schedule to begin with.”

Pepper rolled her eyes, laughing. “You’re going to have a baby looking up to you now. Even if you pull binge sessions in the workshop, it’s important to make sure you resurface to get food and drink.”

Once upon a time, she might have said water specifically. Now, she said drink with a finality and assumption that it wouldn’t be alcohol. It had been nearly three years since Tony last drank.

Three years.

Damn.

He had a lot to be proud of.

*

Steve was someone he still had to work with, no matter how hard that felt most days. Today, of all days, was especially taxing.

“Look, Rogers, you still haven’t been cleared for duty. I don’t care how much you hate it, but I call the shots now, and you aren’t ready.

“You still lose your damn mind when you so much as step out on the battlefield, and then any plans we had or make become second to whatever you think will be best in the moment. That's not how a team functions, that's how they get killed.” Tony shook his head. "Talk to the therapist I recommended and we can go from there. Understood?”

“I’m not talking to a damn therapist, Tony.” He clenched a fist. “I don’t want to talk to a therapist. I’ll be fine as soon as we’ve gotten everyone back.”

“Rogers, get your shit sorted. Until then, I’m benching you on anything short of chaos.”

And the vestiges of a guardsmen group left by Thanos hardly counted as chaos. Working with Bruce and Princess Shuri, they had found ways to deal with most of the creatures Thanos could throw at them. The larger, four legged creatures were still a challenge, but they learned more and more with every fight.

He flew out of the conversation, making sure to give FRIDAY a remote order to keep all of Rogers’ gear under lock-and-key unless there was an emergency.

The princess appreciated it. Since taking on the mantle of the Black Panther in her brother’s stead, as well as taking the throne given her mother turning to dust as well, she had revoked the welcome of the Rogues in Wakanda. She made claims about it damaging political relationships Wakanda had long held dear, as well as spoiling negotiations she had tried to keep up in the wake of Thanos’ actions.

She had also made her distasted for them known.

“I understand we must work together, but knowing how hard my father worked for those Accords, your dismissal of such a document is very concerning.” She had said. She had nodded to Rogers. “When a hundred and fifteen countries agree on something, it is not yours to decide they are wrong.

“I respect your desire to do what you thought was right. I hope you can respect that I disagree.”

Shuri, even at her young age, was the epitome of professional grace. She wasn’t fond of Rogers and his crew, but she worked with them flawlessly and with minimal conflict. Tony wished he could emulate that, could take on that poise and charm as easily as his snark and his business masks fell into place, but he had never learned that particular skill. The American corporate world had been a lot more cut throat, and once you were high enough, the people you dislike could be forced out.

Or, the people you thought no longer useful, as he had learned from Obadiah.

*

Shuri and Tony got along rather well, on the other hand. A mutual love of science and a broad base of expertise between the two of them, even if the only initial overlap was engineering, meant they had a lot to talk about. Where Peter had been something of a child to Tony and something of a mentee, Shuri was schooling Tony in the lab as often as he was her. The brilliant thing about it was the tech that came about as a result – the constant competition and intellectual debates, many of which ended in potentially dangerous experiments, meant they were producing better tech, often with integrated designs, at faster rates. One day, he'd have to get that crazy raccoon down there, and then it would really be a party.

Often times, when they started on a project like their current one, they were both completely silent, a combined library of their music shuffling in the background. There were times, however, when that wasn’t true.

“My father spoke very highly of you, Doctor Stark. He claimed your mind was as good at politics as it was at science.”

Tony looked up from his piece of their joint project. “What?”

“I said my father admired you. He disagreed with you on many things, and he thought your early years a waste, but he admired that you rose above it and worked hard to overcome your past. I appreciate the chance to work with you.”

Tony choked up a bit. Maybe it was sympathy hormones from Pepper’s pregnancy (that was totally a thing, right?), but that was touching. “I’m glad I get to work with someone on your level, Princess. The things you do with Vibranium? Amazing.”

Shuri smiled at him, passing him her section. “Combine them here. I implemented a locking mechanism that should be able to contain Thanos’ beasts, if we’re very lucky.”

“Well, my luck has never been great, Princess, but here’s to hoping.”

“Here is to hoping,” she nodded. She watched him a moment. “We will get them back.”

Tony nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, we’ll get them back.”

“My brother didn’t like holding them in Wakanda, you know.” Shuri sighed. “He felt you should get justice for your parents, but he also felt he had to make reparations for what he had done to them in his pursuit of revenge. Perhaps it was misguided, but he had a good heart.”

“I don’t begrudge your brother any of that. I promise.”

And some days their conversations were either about science, or were focused on their mutual acquaintances. It wasn’t terse or tense, necessarily, but it wasn’t comfortable, either.

Shuri shook her head. “We didn’t agree with him about hosting your rogue Avengers. Mother and I understood giving sanctuary to Barnes to help him heal, but the others didn’t have that kind of excuse.”

Tony shrugged. “I’m willing to put that aside for right now. We have bigger problems.”

“But can we solve those problems if we don’t address the small ones?”

Tony didn’t have an answer to that. Shuri would be going back to Wakanda in a few days time. 

He didn't have an answer for her then, either.

*

Clint started running interference for Pepper at some point, but Tony found he didn’t mind. The two of them, if it wasn’t training, spent their time finding ways to covertly babyproof the entirety of the penthouse. Sometimes, Rhodey even joined in.

“I’m surprised Natasha hasn’t worked it out, honestly.” Clint shrugged. “She figured it out pretty quickly every time Laura got pregnant.”

Laura was still a rough subject to bring up, as was Nathaniel, just like Peter and Happy were rough topics for Tony. They had lost so much, and somedays Tony wondered what they had to gain by continuing the fight. But, like he always did, he knew he would continue and push and fight on. He would live on, if only to prove a point.

“She’s been pretty busy.”

It was true. Natasha had been working with Banner to try and rebuild some of that trust they had shared. Unfortunately, even if Banner was willing to put aside their differences for the sake of the fight, Hulk was still bitter about being sent off a cliff. It made for a long and tedious process of the two of them doing missions together or doing things for Danvers that would rebuild the Hulk’s trust in the Black Widow.

May walked in, carrying cookies from a bakery down the street from her apartment. She sat next to Clint with the tray “Hey! I’m May Parker. James said there was babyproofing happening, and I have some experience with that.

“Peter was four when he came to stay with us, but we didn’t want to take any chances.”

Tony nabbed one of the cookies while Barton made his own introduction. Soon enough, she was helping them, throwing a verbal jab here and there and giving as good as she got. It was a good little crew. A parental one, and a bit of a sentimental one. He had made the mistake before, with Peter, of not cherishing the people he had in his life. It was not one he was anxious to repeat, so he looked and watched a moment as Barton and May argued about how best to raise a toddler and let himself commit it to memory.

Yeah. He had a pretty good thing going.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Come say hi!](putmymusiconshuffleidareyou.tumblr.com)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve starts some much needed therapy, and Tony grieves Peter.

Steve didn’t like the idea of therapy. Sitting down and talking his _about_ problems seemed like a waste of time when he could be out there _doing something_ instead. But, Tony insisted, and Carol had made him the head of the Rogues while she worked out some of the logistics of other international heroes that had survived the Snap joining them to find and fight Thanos. A small part of Steve, the part that had read the file, seen the video, and judged the man solely on that, wondered if this was being petty. His own logic took over, though. Despite their disagreements, Tony always had a reason for what he did, even if Steve couldn’t see it. Even if Steve didn’t think the action was particularly smart or honorable, Tony didn’t just make calls for the sake of making calls. If Tony thought therapy would help, Steve would give it a shot.

“I’m Doctor Sterling, but if it makes you more comfortable, you can call me Dana.” The woman in front of him was pristinely dressed, but her posture was very relaxed. It made the whole room feel warm and open. “I understand there are some personal issues you wanted to talk about, as well as some issues within your team.”

Steve nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

She smiled. “Alright, first, everything you say is confidential. Nothing leaves this room. FRIDAY isn’t even attached here, so this space is completely safe.

“Second, we can do this a few ways. We can do one-on-one sessions, group or partner sessions with individuals you think you have to work some things out with, or a combination of the two.”

“How would we do a combination?” Steve didn’t want to admit how much safer he felt the instant he knew he wouldn’t be listened in on.

“We would start one-on-one, do that for a while until you were comfortable, and then we would invite the person or people that you wanted to talk to in-person into one of our sessions, and I would act as a mediator between you.”

Steve nodded again. “Alright. If I had to make a decision now, I’d say one-on-one.”

Doctor Sterling nodded, leaning into her chair a bit. “Alright. If you change your mind, all you have to do is talk to me about it, alright?”

“Alright.”

“Now, you have complete control in the session. We can talk about as much or as little of whatever you want.”

Steve nodded. “Is there somewhere I’m supposed to start?”

“Is there anything bothering you?”

Steve thought about it a moment. There were a few things, but he didn’t know how to talk about them. “Um. Well, I think there’s…”

He paused. He hadn’t felt this incapable since before the serum.

“Take your time. We’re going to be meeting for an hour a session, twice a week, so if you don’t want to bring it up now, you can bring it up later.”

Maybe therapy wouldn’t be so bad.

*

Tony knew they had to find a way to tell the others about the kid at some point, but it had been mutually agreed they would worry about it when she started to show. It didn’t stop him from worrying, though.

So, he worked in his lab every chance he got. Any type of safety feature he could make for the penthouse, he tried and perfected so that their child would be safe from anything outside. If he was lucky, it would keep her out of the line of fire if Thanos came back. He was going to ignore his own self-proclaimed terrible luck and focus instead on how he was going to also protect Pepper, May, and Rhodey. He would never forgive himself if they got hurt. More than that, he couldn’t bring Peter back if he didn’t have May to come back to. His aunt meant so much to him, and Tony was going to do everything in his power to protect her from harm so that she would be there, bright and vibrant as the day Peter had gone.

Pepper had taken to sitting in the workshop with him, something that was both different and beloved. Being able to look over at her when he was working just affirmed everything he was trying to do.

He couldn’t just rely on suits anymore. He needed to up the actual things around to protect them.

So, grabbing Pepper’s hand with his left, he continued drafting plans and making considerations. They had a future to plan for, and he was so happy to have her by his side for it.

*

May and Rhodey had spent a few days hanging out apart from Tony, and Rhodey had to say he enjoyed it. May Parker was funny, and very much in a dorky kind of way. He could see where the kid had gotten it, though May pulled it off better given she had more time to accept it in stride and build it up with her own confidence.

Sitting in a small café, one of the few left in the aftermath of Thanos, but one that did fairly well, regardless, Rhodey took a moment to appreciate that the women in front of him was made of steel. She had lost and lost and lost again, but here she was still trying to find something to laugh about.

“You’re incredible.” The words left his mouth before he could really think about it.

May wasn’t one to blush, but she did smile and look down at her plate. “Thank you.”

Rhodey felt himself smiling. “I mean it. There are a lot of people that have had your kind of life and let it make them bitter.

“It’s amazing that you’re still so kind after all of that.”

May met his eyes this time, her smile more somber. “No one that I’ve lost would have wanted me to lose myself in my grief. I miss all of them, and I may never stop, even with the promise that I might get Peter back.

“But I refuse to let that loss define me.”

Rhodey could feel it, just behind his ribs, that tell-tale feeling he got sometimes. He liked May Parker as more than a friend.

*

Pepper didn’t like the things that came with pregnancy. As much as she was excited for having a baby, she was not excited when she was waking up to the urge to vomit, among other things. She knew it was going to get worse, but she focused on the end result – a child with Tony. It would all be worth it.

And during the day, it wasn’t as hard to focus on the result. On what was coming.

Tony had no gender preference. He had made that clear. He didn’t care about who the baby was, his only hope was that the baby was healthy and that the two of them could give the child a loving home. It was so sweet, to see that side of Tony, a man in touch with a part of him she had watched him bury. He had shown bits and pieces whenever children recognized him as Iron Man, but it was concentrated even more as he read every parenting book he could and worked on every project under the sun for their child.

But then came some of the nights where he shot up in bed, or he pulled her close and cried silently into her shoulder. The nights where, despite the barely there bump that was their child, that brought him joy, he was destroyed by the loss from the last few years.

From a few months prior.

It was worse when the loss hit him during the day. This time it was Peter’s friend, Ned, that had unwittingly triggered the cascading grief. Tony had walked out of the room at one point, leaving Pepper with the teen.

“Miss Potts, I’m really sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, Ned. Not at all.” She leaned into the arm of the couch a bit. “We all miss Peter, and as much as Tony tries to hide it, he was hit really hard by what happened.”

Ned nodded. Tony had tracked him down shortly after Pepper had met Peter, after what Tony had dubbed "The Homecoming Fiasco", and given him access to the SI Computer Lab, a space he had set up for people, typically undergrad students, but occasionally extremely gifted high school students, to practice programming and to build their own projects from scratch. He had been pushing to fund more and more of a supplementary education program in New York. His logic was that if he could get it to work there, he could set up free centers across America for kids to enter and work in.

Once Peter had turned to dust, he had reached out to Ned, letting him know what had happened.

Pepper hadn’t said a word when Ned showed up on the programming intern roster.

“I miss him a lot.”

Pepper’s smile fell. Even the professionalism that normally kept it up couldn’t stop it. “We all do.”

Ned swallowed, looking close to tears. “I… I really appreciate getting to work for SI and all, but I’m gonna go home.”

Pepper didn’t comment on the finality in his statement. She knew it had to be hard coming in as ‘Peter’s friend’. The other interns, some of whom (once Pepper set up actual intern duties for him) had gotten to know him, might not have been as torn up by his loss, but it was felt in the areas he frequented. It made sense Ned might want to get away from that. If he came back, he came back, and she wouldn’t comment on that, either.

“Alright, Ned. I’ll call,” she almost said Happy, and had to choke on another bout of grief. Another friend gone. “I’ll call someone from security to give you a ride home.”

“Thanks.”

*

Tony hid in his lab. He wasn’t supposed to let this get to him. He was supposed to do what he always did – bottle it up until he got Peter back and deal with the aftermath with his therapist.

But that wasn’t working so instead he blacked out the lab and had FRIDAY play videos of Peter. From lab days, from the suit, it didn’t matter. Just so long as he heard his voice.

_“Aw, come on, kitty. You don’t have to scra-ah! That hurt!”_

He, as Spider-Man, was pulling a cat down from a tree for a little girl. It seemed like nothing, but he was so ginger about picking up the cat and making sure it was safe, even ignoring the scratch he had gotten and the bite on his hand (Tony had wondered what had happened when the injury alert came through that day…) and being completely dedicated in his task. He sounded so happy when the little girl thanked him and hugged him.

Peter was a special kid.

The next video played, and the next, and the next. Tony was down there a good twenty minutes before someone interrupted him.

“Mister Stark.”

It was the AI he had put in Peter’s suit – JOCASTA, though he had named her Karen.

“Yes?”

“Would you like these videos transferred out of temporary storage and onto the main server?”

“Yes, please.”

While the files did their thing, he walked back upstairs, barely holding it together.

_“Peter looked up to you since we were kids, man. The day you showed up at his apartment was the best day of his life.”_

Ned hadn’t meant it to guilt Tony. He knew that. But he still felt the weight of it on his chest, in his heart. He knew that Peter looked up to him – he had seen it firsthand with the Vulture.

_“I was just trying to be like you.”_

_“Well I wanted you to be better.”_

He had a long way to go. He knew that. His therapist had even said so.

But damn, if it didn’t feel good just then to cry a bit and remind himself what it was he was missing. Maybe now he could focus on getting Peter back. On making sure everyone got back. Maybe now, he could look Rogers in the eye, say what needed to be said, and then work as a probably-two-steps-from-dysfunctional team again.

Maybe. But first, he had a fiancée to go and sit with, an evening to end, and some sleeping to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all of you that have commented! It makes my day! 
> 
> [Come say hi!](putmymusiconshuffleidareyou.tumblr.com)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve has some necessary revelations during therapy, and Pepper faces some backlash for her pregnancy, and not of the public variety.

“Mister Rogers,” Dana started. Steve fought the urge to correct her – it had led to uncomfortable questions the first time it had happened. “You talk a lot about Doctor Stark. Could you tell me about the first time you met?”

Steve settled into his chair. This was a battle story. This was what people had expected of him since the minute he came out of the ice. He could do this, he could tell this story with ease.

“We met just before the Battle of New York, when Loki had first become a problem.”

“And what was your first impression of him?”

He didn’t want to swear – not in these sessions, it wouldn’t be respectful to her or the work she had done to get here if he did – but it was hard not to call him ‘asshole-ish’ when he thought about his first impression of Tony. “He was… a spectacle.”

“What do you mean by a spectacle?”

“I mean, he was in it to grandstand and show-off from the start. I didn’t think then, and I’m not sure now, that the sacrifice play is one he’s comfortable with.”

“The personal sacrifice play or the collateral damage sacrifice play?”

“Excuse me?” That sick feeling was coming back. The one that had hit him when she first asked why the title ‘Captain’ was so important to him that he felt the need to correct people who called him otherwise.

“I mean, there are many types of sacrifice. You’ve told me in previous sessions, that you don’t think Doctor Stark is comfortable with the idea of collateral damage. Is that the sacrifice you mean?”

Steve thought about it a moment. “Collateral damage is going to happen in our line of work, and we can’t change that.”

“Do you think Doctor Stark was just trying to minimize it?”

“Maybe, but even so, we learn more from analyzing what we did well as a team than trying to fix something that won’t change.”

“So you don’t think he would make the sacrifice of accepting collateral damage.”

“No, ma’am.”

“Then what about personal sacrifice?”

Steve looked at her a moment. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that since Doctor Stark has started putting his efforts into his work as Iron Man, he’s put considerable risk on his own life, as well as the lives of his best friends and his fiancée. He also has added to the danger of losing his own life several times, including the time, shortly after he met you, where he flew a nuclear warhead through a portal to keep it from hitting New York City.

“Maybe, some of your perception of him is colored because the two of you think differently in terms of what ‘sacrifice’ really means.” She looked at the notes she had on past sessions before checking her watch. “We have twenty minutes left. Is there anything else you want to touch on today?”

Steve thought about that, too. He did a lot more introspection in these sessions than he did in his daily life. He liked the clarity it brought, but sometimes he had to face some uncomfortable truths, and he didn’t like how drained he felt following the sessions. He knew it was good for him – he was feeling better, and he was seeing things clearer. He didn’t feel the need to defend himself when someone questioned him, just explain his rationale.

He sighed. “Was I wrong to keep what I knew about Tony’s parents’ deaths from him?”

Doctor Sterling shifted, her head tilting back. “I think only you know the answer to that.”

“Can you help me?”

She nodded. “I would be glad to. Let’s start with this: what was your motivation when you decided to hide the information?”

“I…” Steve sighed. He had promised himself, after his third or fourth session, that he would be honest with Doctor Sterling. “I didn’t want to hurt him. I swear. I just… I also didn’t want him to hurt Bucky.”

Doctor Sterling nodded. “The human mind is tricky. You can have two motives that might not agree with each other, and your mind will find a way to rationalize it.

“I think you’re telling the truth, for the record. I also think that, given how he found out, Doctor Stark has every right to be wary of you.”

“I’ve apologized, and I would love to make it up to him, but I don’t know how.”

“There are some mistakes we don’t come back from, we just move on from.” She smiled, soft and heartfelt. She was empathetic and kind, something Steve really appreciated. “But I think you did, in your heart, mean well, and that means something. Just be aware that Doctor Stark’s feelings are a valid reaction to the circumstances, and he has every right to distance himself from you as a result.

“Sometimes our actions have unforeseen consequences.”

He didn’t want to move on from this, he wanted to go back to what things were like before.

But Doctor Sterling was right. He couldn’t. Not without Tony, and Tony wasn’t really talking to him right now. He would have to just suck it up. He didn’t want to force anything, not after a different conversation had with Doctor Sterling. He wouldn’t let himself fall into that trap again, not if he could help it.

*

Pepper felt distinctly uncomfortable after she started showing. Once it was obvious that she was pregnant, she could feel the men around her start changing. Where before she had wielded her power with an absolute grip, the men on the board understanding that she was more than capable and she was not going to yield to them just because they pushed, now they were trying anything and everything they could to make her break so they could say she was unfit and drag someone else in as head of the company.

She refused to break. There were three other women on the board who were helping her field the more obstinate of the men, and who were looking out for her in other ways. The tips from Sharon on managing a balance of her work at the company and her life with her children, the decaf coffees from Jane that tasted just like the real thing, but were safe for her, and the little projects that Cathy was picking up to take some of the load off of her. With their help, she was managing not to lose her cool at work, despite her steadily lowering tolerance for the bullshit and posturing.

“It’s like they think just because a woman is pregnant, she’s suddenly lost all her capability!”

Tony nodded, setting tea in front of her. He had started coming to more and more of the board meetings, staring down others when they started to push her. While the board was losing their fear of her, they were more than willing to cede the floor to Tony, who had made it clear in no uncertain terms that if they pushed her out he would fight his way back to the CEO position and give it back to her as soon as she wanted it.

Sometimes she realized just how lucky they were to have found each other. He would fight for her, and she would tear a hole through anyone who wanted to hurt him.

“Well they’re all old assholes. The second one of them dies, I’m finding the most left-leaning, good-business-practice-minded young person I can and replacing them.”

Pepper laughed. That had always been the plan. He couldn’t force them out when they were the majority, but he could start replacing them as they retired or died with people that he thought would manage the company better, and with a better mind towards the employees under them.

“You always did have good ideas.”

“I resent being called the idea man.”

Pepper laughed again, a bit harder. “I didn’t mean it like that, and you know it.”

He smiled at her. “I know.” He kissed her temple as he sat next to her. “Anything else I can do to help?”

“Hmm… normally I would say a foot rub, but I think I’m fine tonight.”

“You sure?”

She nodded. “I like just having a night.”

He hummed, then she felt his cheek shift – he was doing that mischievous smile that said he was getting ready to drop something good. “Did you hear?”

“What?” She looked at him.

“Our honeybear has a crush.”

Her eyes widened. “You’re kidding? Who is it? May?”

Tony’s face fell. “Aw, come on! How’d you know?”

Pepper gave him a look. “They’ve been spending a lot of time together, Tony. I don’t think he’s gay or bi – wait, is he?”

Tony nodded. “Pan.”

Pepper nodded. “Good to know.”

“But, anyway, our Honeybear doesn’t think anyone knows. But, if I’ve noticed, I would bet that May knows.”

“I’ll take that action.” Pepper shifted and set her head on his shoulder. “May is a brilliant woman, but I don’t think she’d notice. She’s a giver – she would never assume someone was looking to give back.”

“You are so amazing at that.”

“At what?”

“Understanding people.” Tony’s hand started going through her hair. “You understand them, and you can see them for everything – strengths, weaknesses, loves, hates – it’s incredible. I love it.”

Tony had been talking to Doctor Sterling himself, ever since the Civil War incident, and it had helped him a lot. Even if he still kept most of his emotions to himself, he was freer with expressing to people how much they meant to him.

She was glad he had started before he lost Peter – there could have been no doubt in the boy’s mind that Tony cared for him.

“Do you think they’d work well together? May and Rhodey?”

Tony took a moment to think before answering. “I don’t know. I think they could be really good for each other, I just don’t know if they’d ever get that far. I could see it turning into one of those mutual pining teenage movies.”

Pepper put her hand on his shoulder, pushing it lightly. “Come on. Maybe they’ll work out.”

Tony nodded. “Maybe. If something happens, I hope they do.”

Pepper let herself relax as she sighed. Her day was over, and it was a weekend. She didn’t have to see the jerks from the board again for a while, and she had lunch with May on Sunday. Things were hell – there were all kinds of consequences from Thanos, the population notwithstanding.

But for now, things felt almost normal.

She smiled. “Actually, I change my bet…”

*

May found herself working more and more after Thanos. They lost a lot of nurses and doctors, and they were pulling whoever they could onto as many shifts as possible, labor laws be damned. People had been injured or lost caregivers, and it was all hands on deck. While the immediate rush had slowed, meaning one day a week off, she was still busy and working herself to the bone.

Which is why she didn’t expect James to show up to her work, holding a bag with what smelled like a Delmar’s sandwich and saying he had gotten her the rest of the afternoon off.

“James, you shouldn’t have!”

He smiled at her. “You really helped out last week, it was the least I could do.”

She hadn’t done anything – just answered his call when he woke up from a nightmare. It was nothing she hadn’t done for Peter after Ben, or when his Spider-Man activities had gotten to him, and she said as much.

“Well it was a lot to me, and I really appreciated it.”

May smiled, walking down the street, following his lead. “Still, you didn’t have to do this.”

He ducked into a coffee shop nearby. “Well,” he took in a breath. Thanos meant he had to act, or he could lose the chance. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“What?”

“Do you wanna try dating? I mean, dating each other?”

May paused a moment, looking up at him. She looked at him, considering. “I haven’t really dated since Ben died. I didn’t want to derail Peter or make him worry.” She smiled. “I think that could be fun.”

Rhodey would deny until his dying day that he smiled like a teenager when she said that, but it was a lie, and Tony knew him well enough he didn’t even bother trying to prove it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> [Come check me out on Tumblr!](http://putmymusiconshuffleidareyou.tumblr.com)
> 
> P.S. There wasn't a lot of editing done on this because it's been a _long_ day. There's been some done during writing and the like, but not the editing I've been doing on the chapters from the last few days.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pepper has the baby.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Note, this chapter does deal with childbirth. If this makes you uncomfortable, the section centering on Bruce is the only part that deals with it in any detail, and you can skip it if you'd like.**
> 
> Thanks for reading!

Rhodey was nervous. He and May had tried the whole dating thing for a few weeks, and it had been going well. They had tried a standing date night, but May’s schedule was too hectic to do much regularly. Instead, he would drop off lunch for her, and they would meet up when she had a day or a half-day off and watch movies or get tea.

Given it had been going so well, he wanted to tell Tony – May had talked to him about talking to her friends at work about him, and they had agreed to that. The only problem? Telling Tony about May felt suspiciously like telling his mom about his high school boyfriend or his college girlfriend. Or any of his significant others that lasted more than a few weeks.

In short, it felt a little like doom was surrounding him and settling on him as its next target.

He could do this. Just…

He watched Tony bound across the lab, smiling and talking a mile a minute. Pepper’s due date was soon, and if Rhodey considered how common it was for women to go into labor a little early or a little late, she could theoretically go into labor at any moment and Tony’s energy level and hype only increased with each passing day. He wasn’t going to intrude on something so special, not when his friend was finally letting himself have this, a family. He would say something after the baby was born.

“I’m super happy for you, man.”

“And don’t think I didn’t notice the way you looked at May!”

Or not.

*

It was the middle of the night when Bruce was ripped from sleep by urgent messages from FRIDAY calling him to the medical wing. He didn’t even pay attention to Steve, who seemed to have come back from a midnight workout, brushing him off in the rush. There was one reason he would be called down tonight – Pepper. There hadn’t been any missions for about two weeks now, as several of Thanos’ packs of goons had left. There was an underlying assumption that they would be coming back, but until then, Earth was using the time to shore up her defenses and recuperate. With luck, they could keep themselves from being pushed under Thanos’ thumb twice.

Bruce found it astonishing that Tony had done so well against Thanos. He hadn’t talked about the fight at all, but Natasha had been curious and dug into his servers. He must not have cared who found the footage, because it was laying right there.

That was a lie. Bruce knew Tony only left it so unguarded because he knew they would go looking, and that would keep them from digging too deep into his system and finding anything that he wanted to keep private. Tony didn’t confide in him anymore – not since the sleeping incident – except for when he was sleep-deprived to an extreme even he couldn’t handle or when he was drunk. Bruce hadn’t been there for the time before he stopped drinking, but even then he had revealed that he liked to keep them sated and protect himself. Hence, he left what they wanted out in the open and buried what he wanted to keep hidden deep enough that they wouldn't find it. 

He felt bad for having fallen asleep – he felt worse for his comment _(“I’m not that kind of doctor.” Tony hadn’t needed a doctor, though, had he? He had needed a friend.)_ , but he couldn’t change the past. He could only correct going forward.

But he couldn’t worry about his friendships right now. Walking in, he found Pepper laying on her back, Doctors holding Tony back from her.

Helen ran up to him. “Get him out of here. There are some complications and we don’t want him here if things go south. We’re going to try C-Section.”

That was his excuse, and he knew it. They would need him out for a C-section anyway, but it was far more likely they could get Tony – who was infamous for being protective – to leave the room, even for a little while. Tony was already stressing too much for the heart condition he liked to pretend no one knew about. With all the stress he had been under just dealing with Thanos, the last thing he needed to be in the room if something went wrong.

Bruce nodded, walking towards Tony and grabbing his arm as gently as he could. “Tony, they want to try a cesarean, but you need to leave the room.”

He shook his head, absent as he watched Pepper, before the words caught up with him. “Yeah. Yeah, alright.”

“Come on.”

He would hope for the best. Helen was one of the best, but gynecology and obstetrics weren’t her field of specialty. Meanwhile, though, he had to find a way to calm Tony down.

Maybe he should call someone else – no.

Even if it weren’t for the fact that for the first time in a while, the Hulk was being vocal, he knew himself that if he did that he would lose all chance to reconcile with Tony. He had to find a way to handle this himself, or at least be an active participant in it.

He kept walking, a hand light against Tony’s shoulder.

“She’ll be fine, yeah?” Tony was shaking a bit. Tony was rarely this vulnerable with anyone, but Bruce could assume that, in this case, it was more of the subject that was causing the vulnerability, not the company.

“Chances are, yeah.”

Tony nodded. “I… I want a kid, but not if it means I lose Pepper. She’s too special, too important to me.”

Bruce didn’t hear Steve come up behind them, but he saw him in his periphery and tried to signal him that it was clearly _not_ the time.

“Anything I can do to help?”

“I’ve got this, Steve.”

The look of gratitude Tony gave him shouldn’t have ever had a reason to exist, but at least Bruce had done something right.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. How about you go and… I don’t know… check equipment or something.”

Tony must have rubbed off on him a bit, because that felt like something he would have said. Bruce didn’t linger on that thought, though, because he had a friend (acquaintance, perhaps?) to take care of. After getting Tony to the kitchen, he started some tea. If he could get Tony to focus on something else, he might be able to find a better way to help. One step at a time, he had to remember. It wouldn’t do anyone any good to rush, because that could start panic.

One step at a time, no matter how painful it was for him, or how stressful. He was going to help Tony through this.

*

Steve didn’t know how to feel about Pepper’s pregnancy, and that was without the fact that there would be a small child running around the Avengers. Not even a small child that could run, but a baby that needed near-constant care and attention. They _needed_ Tony – they couldn’t afford for him to be spending more time at home than on the field.

But it wasn’t his place to say anything. Not until it interfered with the team doing their job, which Steve was sure it would eventually. Even then, he wasn’t the team leader anymore, meaning he would have to tread carefully.

Overall, though, he was happy for Tony. He was worried about how Tony would handle the worse parts of being a father, but he was happy for him. Tony had been looking forward to this, and he had read and listened to all the people that had any experience more than he did.

Doctor Sterling smiled. “I hear congratulations are in order for Doctor Stark.”

“Yeah.”

“How do you feel about Morgan Stark’s birth?”

Steve had really underestimated how nice it would be to have someone to just talk to, especially someone that could cut through some of the mire of life and make things a bit clearer. “I think she’s a cute kid, and I’m really happy for Tony. The timing is horrible, though.”

“There’s never a good time to have a child.” Doctor Sterling’s smile was as sad as it was soft. “And right now, I think it could be one of the best times. A child can bring a lot of joy to people, especially, if what you’ve told me is true, one that is as wanted as Morgan.

“Things change, Mister Rogers. There’s got to be room for that to happen, otherwise we feel like life is collapsing around us when really, it’s just moving forward.”

Steve nodded. He supposed there was some truth to that. Maybe if he had started this therapy thing back when he had first come out of the ice, or even after the Battle of New York, or the Helicarrier fight in D.C., that maybe some of his problems could have been avoided.

“I am happy for Tony, really.”

Doctor Sterling’s smile was a lot lighter this time. “I know you are. It’s understandable to worry, especially in the current circumstances. Just don’t let your worry cloud your vision, alright?”

Steve agreed to that. He could do that. It was the least he could do.

*

Tony didn’t think there was anything that could compare to the feeling of holding Morgan in his arms the first time. Pepper had still been under anesthesia when the nurse had finished cleaning her off, so she had been handed to Tony, and it was a memory he was going to keep forever. She was so small, he could barely suppress the fear that he might break her just by holding her.

He had cried the first time he held her. He wasn’t ashamed to admit it.

Pepper had loved it just as much, as well. The sleepless nights, the crying, it was all worth it for the moments when she was smiling and bubbly, engaging with the world around her without a care in the world for the fact that it was falling apart. It was exactly what they had needed.

Pepper had ended up winning their bet about Rhodey and May, but that just meant that the two were more willing to be couple-y around them. Clint had joined their little group, often bringing his own children up. They couldn’t do much to play with Morgan, given she was only a few days old, but they lifted some of the atmosphere.

“I’m telling you, man. There is nothing like it.”

“I’m not mixing coffee and coca-cola, Barton.” Tony shook his head, secretly pleased that he did still have enough of a renegade reputation that May and Pepper looked a bit relieved. “I undoubtedly mixed stupider during my college years, but that is not a time I’m looking to repeat.”

“Good.” Rhodey laughed at him, leaning forward to start a story. “The kinds of shenanigans that he and I got up to… Tony, you better hope that girl is all Pepper, otherwise you’ve got your hands full.”

“Don’t I know it!”

Yeah. He should be devoting a lot more time to Thanos and the threats that were looming around them.

But he also needed to take this time and let himself breathe. He had been running for so long, and he needed this rest. Having a family, no matter how happenstance and makeshift this one was, was exactly what he had needed. Building it through all the fire and struggle of the last ten years was worth it, now that he could see the results. Now that he could feel, in this room, that he was genuinely relaxed, and not playing at it to put on a front.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Tony disagree about Morgan. 
> 
> Shuri would do whatever she could to protect her.

Steve and Tony came to a head after Tony’s first mission back. It wasn’t that something had gone particularly wrong, but Tony could feel it in himself, and was sure that it hadn’t gone unnoticed by the others that he was trying to take as few unnecessary risks as possible. He had always tried to limit it before, but now the image of Morgan growing up without a father was enough to push him from the kinds of risks that Steve had ordered.

“This is bigger than Morgan, Stark!”

“Oh, it’s Stark, now, is it?”

“You have to know that the fight against Thanos takes precedence!”

“I have a kid, Steve. I can’t just die! Pepper just gave birth – I’m not leaving her now.”

“If you were really in it, you would know that our lives were a small price to pay for everyone’s safety.”

“I am really in it, Steve. I’m just in it for different reasons, and one of those reasons gives me enough pause to want to get back home alive.”

Steve glared and huffed, turning back towards the tower. Tony was sure their fight wasn’t truly over – just postponed until they were somewhere less public. Things hadn’t been great between them at all, and even with therapy on both ends, the relationship was still remarkably icy. Tony wasn’t exactly eager for it to thaw – he didn’t want the relationship to become what it had been. That wouldn’t be a good example for Morgan of how relationships worked.

Even if he didn’t care how he himself was treated, now he had to think about what his daughter would grow up seeing as an example for adult relationships. He was glad he had already quit drinking – it would have been much harder in the face of the sleepless nights and the constant tension on the team.

By the time he was on his floor, the armor stripping off of him and already reaching to grab Morgan from Pepper, he had pushed Steve as far from his mind as possible.

“Thank you for being so careful.”

“Anything for my two favorite girls.”

Pepper put a hand on the side of his face. She kissed his cheek and then Morgan’s.

This family of his was more than enough reason to come home. More than enough reason to be that extra little bit careful. He was going to make this last.

*

Steve didn’t take his issues with Tony’s kid to Doctor Sterling. Not after how the conversation had gone before. He knew that his concern was clouding some of his judgement – that didn’t change the fact that such a priority change in the middle of a war was dangerous.

He didn’t have many people to talk it out with, but he hoped that at least Natasha would be helpful.

“I think it’s good that Stark has something to motivate him.” She shrugged. “It’ll balance out. Eventually he’ll be back to himself.”

“I just don’t think we should wait for that eventuality. How do we even know we have time?”

Natasha shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you, Steve. It happened, he has a kid. It makes sense he’s going to be more careful.”

*

The phantom sensations were normal to grieving. That’s what Tony had been told by his therapist, by Pepper, and when he had lost his parents. It was supposed to go away.

He wasn’t supposed to get these dreams. He wasn’t supposed to hear Peter screaming in his sleep, only for it to open up on an image of him bleeding before turning into dust. Of him being abandoned in the middle of nowhere. Of him sneaking through a building, looking stressed as though he were in a survival situation.

The images were hazy. He could hardly tell what was going on in any of them, but he knew that it was the last thing he needed. Even so, any connection to Peter was one that he would take. He didn’t want to imagine what the kid had felt in those final moments. He didn’t want to imagine what the kid, if there was any chance he was still alive _somewhere,_ even in the Gauntlet, might be going through. It could be pain, fear, emptiness…

Whatever it was, he owed it to the kid to bring him back and do everything he could to support him as he recovered from it. He owed it to May to bring back her nephew. To support her as she tried to deal with an undoubtedly traumatized teenager.

He woke up from this dream in a different way. It wasn’t the kind of nightmare that had him shooting up in his bed. It was the kind where his eyes opened and left him struggling to understand the sudden change in scenery before he fully realized he was awake. It was the kind where he was holding onto smoke when he tried to remember what he had seen.

He rolled over, looking at Pepper before he got up.

He could check on one of his kids.

*

When Shuri heard about Tony’s child, she had petitioned what remained of the elders to be allowed to provide her with a Kimoyo bead for health monitoring.

“We were hoping to integrate into the modern world. Reaching out to an ally is a good way to do that.”

“You want to give something sacred to a foreigner?”

“To a child, a child born in a situation where she will be in constant danger due to her father’s place against Thanos. All I ask is we provide a Prime Bead, a Defense Bead, and a Location Bead for the protection of Morgan Stark. Nothing else.”

Three of the elders remained, and all of them were parents – something she was hoping would work in her favor. “Please. We can protect one more person if we extend this. Morgan Stark is a target, and a vulnerable one. Even if just to be sure Doctor Stark isn’t compromised by her loss, we need to protect her.”

The woman to her right considers her before nodding. “I agree. I will allow it.”

She eyes the woman across from her and the two communicate in the way of lifelong friends and rivals. Shuri didn’t know much about their personal histories – she hadn’t paid as close attention to some of the lessons her father had given her and T’Challa, always assuming he would take the throne and lead as long as their father had – but she knew they were both incredibly accomplished.

The other woman looked to Shuri. “I will allow it.”

The third and final member had been outvoted, and he clearly knew it. He nodded his consent as well, holding Shuri’s gaze. “Please be sure to instruct Doctor Stark on how to use them. He will likely need his own set to be able to use hers best, as will his wife. Only these three, though, my Queen. With luck, this will be to everyone’s benefit.”

*

Shuri had always liked children – they were bright spots of hope for the future, and she had worked hard to convince her father, and then her brother, of the advantages of putting children first in their domestic policy.

It was inevitable, then, that she fell in love with Morgan Stark. Morgan had been sitting in Pepper’s lap, smiling and making small noises, babbling and reaching for Tony. He had grabbed her as he came to greet Shuri, gesturing for her to follow him down to the lab.

“What brings the brilliant Queen of Wakanda to my doorstep?”

“I have brought a gift.” She held out the small bracelet. “As she grows, the chord will naturally expand around her wrist. These will allow you to keep track of her health, her location, and will provide her some measure of defense against normal attackers or would-be kidnappers.”

Tony paused. “Shuri, I can’t possibly accept these – I know how Vibranium is viewed in Wakandan society. I don’t want to make waves or ruffle feathers.”

Shuri laughed outright at that. “I have already gotten it approved. Besides, haven’t you always been one for making a fuss with things? It’s how you’ve pushed the world so far ahead.

“Doctor Stark, I brought these for your family because we, Wakanda, wish to ensure your protection. Your family is a natural extension of that; family is sacred. Please, take them. For your safety, as well as for our peace of mind.”

It was part diplomatic gesture, part friendly exchange. It was the closest they had been, emotionally speaking, in a while.

“Thank you, Shuri. There’s… This is an amazing and wonderful thing you’ve offered my family.”

Shuri smiled before turning to Morgan. “Now, I believe some introductions are in order. This is Morgan, I assume?”

Tony laughed, shifting his hold on her a bit so Shuri could get a better view. “Yeah. This is Morgan.”

Shuri picked up one of the little hands that had been resting against Tony. “I’m Shuri. It is nice to meet you.”

Morgan smiled and made a babbling noise, waving her hand out towards Shuri and squealing. Shuri laughed with Tony as they continued talking to and playing with Morgan a bit. By the time she had fallen asleep in Tony’s arms, the two were ready to discuss war plans again.

“We have no leads on Thanos, but that’s not exactly a surprise. Nebula is digging around for information about him, but based on her last check-in, it’s going worse than she had hoped.”

Shuri nodded.  “Well, we have found a way to reinforce the Vibranium so that our weapons may be stronger against him this time. I’ve also been thinking about what you had mentioned during our last call, and I may have found a way to make it work…”

They had a long way to go, but every time they talked they pushed a little further on it. Progress was sometimes made in small steps, not grand leaps. In the current situation, Shuri was just thankful there was a direction to work in.

*

May liked Rhodey. The past few weeks, nearly five months, had been nice. Rhodey was a perfect gentleman, and there was an easy chemistry between them.

Still, she wished she could have introduced him to Peter. Could have had a family dinner where Rhodey got to take part.

She wished her baby were back in her arms, safe, instead of ash on a foreign world.

There were a lot of things May Parker wished for, many of which she would never get. She was used to that feeling. But the one thing she would burn the world and everyone in it for was Peter, and she hadn’t even gotten the chance.

She was crying in the break room, still reeling, as much as she tried to hide it, from not having Peter to go home to. It wasn’t like he was at college, where he would still come home for holidays. No, she didn’t have Peter at all.

There was a small knock before someone came in, putting a hand on her shoulder.

“I’m so sorry.”

Rhodey, like always, knowing when he was needed. It was almost like having Ben back. She put her arms around him, whispering. “Thank you.”

Rhodey put a hand in her hair. “I promise you, we’re trying to get him back.”

She knew that. It didn’t make it any easier.

“Let’s stay at yours tonight, alright?” Rhodey’s hand was still on her hair, but it moved down to her back. “Let’s not go to the Tower.”

Rhodey lived there for convenience sake, but May would admit – sometimes it was hard to be around Morgan. She was an adorable child, and she was happy beyond belief for Pepper and Tony. But it was still hard.

May nodded. “Alright. Yeah. Let’s do that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you're enjoying it. 
> 
> Thanks for the comments, subscriptions, and kudos! 
> 
> [Come say hi!](https://putmymusiconshuffleidareyou.tumblr.com)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morgan is both a positive and a negative in the lives of the remaining Avengers. It just depends on who you ask.

Steve had run into Tony in the kitchen, of all places, and fought the urge to ask and prod. It wasn’t his place, that had been made clear, and for once he was trying to listen to the people around him. If Tony had a daughter and it made him a weaker person on the field, then that meant they had to work around that, even if Steve didn’t like it.

“I can hear your brain working a mile away, Cap.”

Steve shook his head. At least the animosity was mostly gone. “I’m still conflicted…”

“About Morgan?” Tony shrugged. “What’s there to be conflicted about? She’s my kid, and I’m doing my best by her. I’d think Mister Good-Ol’-Forties would appreciate that.”

“Tony, this isn’t the time for jokes.” He shook his head, taking in a deep breath and trying to remember the breathing exercises he had been taught by Doctor Sterling. He took a second to think about what it was he actually wanted to say, what his actual intent was underneath the predisposed urge to lash out at Tony for not just _knowing_. It was something she had pointed out – it wasn’t fair to anyone to assume they could read his mind. What was an obvious path to him might seem obscene or ridiculous to someone else, and might not even register to yet another person. “I’m worried. We have a mission, a goal. I just need to know what I’m working with. When we’re in the field, your priority is coming home, and I get that. Clint is the same way a lot of the time.

“What I need from you is to know what kinds of risks are off the table. What _can’t_ I ask you to do?”

Tony stopped pouring his coffee. Now that Steve could really look at him, he was kind of concerned. There were deep circles under his eyes, nad  “That’s… surprisingly well thought-out Captain.

“I’ll think about that a bit and get back to you, but to start off with, anything that’s more likely than not to kill me is off the table. Before I do anything on the field, I have FRI run the odds. It’s important that I stay alive.”

Steve nodded. This was a start. He could work with this. And once again, Doctor Sterling was right. Taking time to figure out what he wanted and how to express it without indignation helped. It opened the door for communication instead of the fight he was so used to gearing up for.

*

Pepper woke up to Morgan crying. Normally Tony was up before Pepper had even registered it, insisting on helping out. Pepper knew he wouldn’t be able to maintain it forever, though, and she was glad he had slept through this one. She took the opportunity to hold Morgan a little longer than she absolutely had to, just watching her breathe and sleep.

“I’m so sorry.” There was a whisper from the doorway. Tony rubbed at his eyes, barely awake as far as Pepper could tell. “I didn’t mean to sleep through her crying.”

“Tony, this is parenting. It’s a team effort. You need sleep just as much as I do.”

“I know, I know.” He shook his head. “But you did all the hard work. You gave birth to her.”

“This isn’t going to be a ‘I did more than you’ thing. If it ever becomes that, we’ve done something wrong. It should be us working together, raising our daughter to be her best self.”

Tony nodded. It was quiet a moment before he spoke again. “She’s… she’s…”

Pepper understood perfectly. There wasn’t really a word either of them had for what Morgan was to them. Pepper nodded, laying Morgan back down. “I get it. Let’s get some sleep.”

Tony nodded, laying a hand against Pepper’s shoulder as she walked towards him.

“Thank you. Thank you so much.”

She kissed his cheek. “I’m glad we did it.”

*

Shuri had elected herself to be Morgan’s primary babysitter when she was in the States, or when Tony was in Wakanda. It meant a lot of time with the little girl, which had ended up with the two of them bonding. It was sweet to watch, as far as Okoye was concerned. Shuri, for all her brilliance, had always had trouble connecting with people. Her brother was the most notable exception, but even then, her intellect could still get in the way.

That hadn’t been how it worked with Doctors Banner and Stark or Colonel Rhodes. The former two could keep up almost entirely with her, and Colonel Rhodes had an adept mind and was more than willing to study and learn to talk more with her about her innovations. Connecting with them had helped Shuri in the aftermath of the Snap. She had lost everything, but now she was starting to rebuild herself.

By far, though, the bond she had with Morgan was the one doing the best by her. Morgan was a being that had no expectations for her, someone that lit up upon seeing her. Even at a few weeks old, maybe three months, Morgan was lively and bubbly. It was no wonder that Shuri loved taking a break when she was around to take care of her.

Tony Stark was completely enamored with his daughter, as well, leading to one more thing the two of them could connect over.

Still, Shuri spread herself too thin.

“My Queen, you should rest.”

“I will as soon as this is done.”

Okoye glanced at Nakia. She nodded, gesturing for Okoye to let her take it. “Shuri, please. This will be here tomorrow. We need to know you will be, too.”

Shuri’s shoulders shook at that. “I will be, I promise.”

Okoye sighed, walking closer. “My Queen, please. Rest.”

Shuri rubbed her eyes, turning to face them – she was hiding any semblance of emotion, trying to remain “strong” in front of even her friends.

“Fine. I’ll rest. But I’ll be up with the sun, and you won’t stop me.”

Nakia shared a look with Okoye – they would have to try and get her to rest earlier the next day, if that was the case.

*

Shuri didn’t want to admit it, but she didn’t want to be Queen. She didn’t know what she was doing – even with all her training, even with the visit to the ancestral plane, she still found herself grasping at air as she tried to come up with a solution to each new problem that arose.

Science was constant. It didn’t change on her or suddenly become something it wasn’t. People weren’t like that – they were messy, and they changed their minds at the drop of a coin. She might have all the training to handle people and social situations well, but that didn’t mean it came easy to her. Not in the slightest.

So, when she fell to her bed that night, her first thought was on how she was going to keep the kingdom going until her brother came back. He had told her, her father had told her, “take it one step at a time. One day before the next.”

That was easier said than done, though, when every day was just a mess of people demanding her attention and calling her to their needs. Wakanda had just started integrating into the world, and now they had to recede some to make sure they were surviving. She saw the vision her brother had held so close, but until Thanos was resolved, they wouldn’t get to make that a reality.

She sighed, turning in her bed. She wouldn’t sleep much, that much she knew. She never had been a heavy sleeper, but ever since the fight with Thanos she had been picturing her brother’s death.

She hadn’t even been there. She had been beside her mother, though. Her mother, who had touched her face and told her not to cry. Who had held her, crying her own tears while she told Shuri she would do well by Wakanda and the world.

Her mother, who even in her last moments worried more about her children than herself.

Her mother had been a great queen. A benevolent ruler, and someone Shuri had always aspired to emulate. And here she was, barely holding herself together some days, even a year later.

They said grief held its own time. It wouldn’t fit itself neatly into the day when it was convenient for the mourner, but would instead persist until it was sufficiently acknowledged and dealt with. Shuri didn’t have that kind of time – how did anyone have that kind of time? – and she could feel it festering.

She bit back a sob as she turned again. She didn’t feel it when her eyes got heavy or her breathing slowed. All she knew was the next day she wasn’t awake with the sun, but instead at Okoye’s gentle prodding. There was a look on Okoye’s face of a sister more than pleased.

“I’m glad you got some rest.”

Shuri couldn’t bite back another sob. Before she left her room that day, she found herself crying with Okoye, mourning her family properly for the first time in a year.

“I’m sorry.”

Fifteen minutes later, she was wiping her eyes and straightening herself out.

“You have no reason to be sorry for feeling emotion. It is what makes you a good ruler, even at so young an age.”

Shuri let the words wash over her. She was doing something right if Okoye thought she was a good ruler. She was making headway, even if it didn’t feel like it.

_Mother, father, brother. I’m doing the best I can._

That would have to be enough for now.

*

Tony having a kid led to Clint spending more time with his own two children. He had never been close with them, too busy trying to provide and too afraid, even if he wouldn’t admit it, that he would turn into his own father. He took a page out of Tony’s book – both to support Stark and to keep that from happening under the current stakes – and hadn’t had a thing to drink since moving back into the tower.

There was nothing stopping him – Stark had made it clear it was fine; he wanted to adjust to being around people that were drinking, even if he himself wasn’t – but Clint knew better. He knew he needed every bit of his mind active if he wanted not just to be of use, but to be present for his children.

His kids became the driving force behind him. It made him get up in the morning, and it made him keep moving forward with missions even when it felt like there was no point. Because as long as there was a chance he could bring Laura and Nathaniel back, as long as there was a singular hope in this world they were going to be a family again, he couldn’t in good faith come home to look his children in the eye and say he hadn’t given it his all.

Maybe that’s why he stopped spending as much time with Steve. It wasn’t that Steve was a bad guy, but it was clear he was worried Clint was becoming too much like Tony and putting his family above the world.

That was fair, since he was. But Clint learned early on that it just didn’t work for him to fight for the world. He had to fight for what he cared about, and that included the two kids that were running around his floor, raising hell and laughing. It had been over a year, and as much as it pained Clint to admit it, the three of them had adjusted fairly well. Laura was still on his mind a lot, and he knew it was on Cooper and Lila’s as well. But they kept moving and kept living.

Laura wouldn’t have accepted anything less.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yet another case of college bites me in the butt so I don't do any editing. Sorry about that, my friends. 
> 
> Anyway, feel free to comment, and if you catch any errors, screen cap them and send them to me on my [Tumblr](https://putmymusiconshuffleidareyou.tumblr.com)! I'll be sure to go back if you find any and fix them, but it's late and I need some sleep before tomorrow. No rest for the wicked!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Morgan, Tony's priorities have shifted. The team may understand, but that doesn't mean they necessarily agree.

The planning of their next mission went off without a hitch, but because he hadn’t heard from Tony yet, Steve started to plan the mission without him.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Natasha looked at the plan. “If we put Tony in the center he could watch our backs. Or if we put him in the air around Clint.”

“I’ll talk to him, but I want us to have a backup in case he has to bail at any point.”

Clint shook his head. “This isn’t what he meant.”

“Are you sure?” Steve bristled. He tried to keep his tone even. “Because you weren’t there for the conversation.”

Clint shrugged. “But I’ve been around the guy a lot lately. I don’t think cutting him out is a good idea.”

Steve sighed. “Whatever. We have less than an hour before this mission – do you really think we have time to-”

Shuri walked in. “I’m working with Doctor Stark on this one. The upgrades the two of us have made on the Black Panther suit will allow me to assist from better heights. While I can’t fly like he can, I will be able to jump higher and maintain altitude longer than normal.”

Steve sighed, sitting back down. Tony was hot on her heels.

Looked like it was time to scrap the plan.

*

It was after the mission that Shuri found Tony, seeking his advice.

“How do you convince the world you know what you’re doing?”

Tony had laughed. “Having trouble, Your Highness?”

She felt her anger rising a bit, but tried to temper it. Tony’s face cooled. “I wouldn’t have guessed, honest. But what you’re doing right now – fake it ‘til you make it – that works. It’s a saying for a reason.

“None of us have a damn clue what we’re doing. You think Rogers actually knows how to wage war against a giant purple alien with an army? Of course, he doesn’t. But he did fight off the likes of Red Skull and HYDRA, so he can bring that experience on the field.

“I fought Thanos once, with a scrapped together group of Spider-Man, and the group that Racoon guy says he was a part of. I have no clue what he usually does for tactics, other than throw moons at people. Couldn’t tell you. But I do know that when we fought he relied on brute power and not a lot of real strategy. He took out whoever was fighting him in that moment, he didn’t plan ahead.

“None of us know what we’re doing. But we’re doing our best, and we’re going to keep doing that until eventually it’s enough. Maybe that day comes because we keep improving, maybe it comes because we wear him down into submission, who knows.

“I, for one, don’t intend to let him get away with wiping out half the universe. If there’s a damned chance in hell that I can get everyone back, I will.”

In all the time she had spent with Tony, he had proven to be, in private, a man of few words and many gestures. He communicated his care through grand acts of kindness that he didn’t expect to be thanked for. To hear him speak so openly, though, and for the advice he gave, Shuri wasn’t sure there was ever a way to truly thank him. It was, perhaps, the greatest gesture of them all.

“Thank you.”

That may be all she could _say_ , but she fully intended to live up to his grand statements. Thanos wouldn’t get away with this, and she would get her brother and her mother back. She wouldn’t let things end just because someone had pulled together all the power necessary to say they did. She would rage against it, she would fight.

Sometimes, she wondered what it was about Doctor Stark that people found so off-putting. Other times, when he spoke, she could hear it echoing in his words.

The man had suffered, but he didn’t let it define him. The man had suffered, the kind of suffering people wanted to pity or ridicule.

But he never let them.

*

Rhodey caught on. Of course, he caught on. He was a brilliant man, he would notice that something was up with May.

“Look, it’s nothing you did. It’s just…” She shook her head. “I never thought I would start dating without Peter being there. Being there to talk to, to judge my boyfriend-“

Rhodey raised his eyebrows. “You wanted your seventeen-year-old to judge me?”

May laughed. “You know what I meant!” She put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s nothing you did. It’s just… It’s been just over a year, and it’s starting to hit me, you know?

“Peter’s been… He’s been gone a year.”

“We don’t… if you’re uncomfortable, we don’t have to date. We can… we can take a break, or we can just break-up entirely. Whatever would make you most comfortable.”

May shook her head. “No. I can’t live my life in the past. Ben and Peter wouldn’t have wanted that. James, I want to keep dating you, if you still want to date me.”

Rhodey nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I’d really like that.”

May could tell, especially given how little they had spoken about it, that this would come up again. It almost had to come up again, regardless of whether they wanted it to or not – the situation almost demanded it.

But for now, that was alright. What little they had said would carry them through until the next time it came up. Things would be fine, everything would work out, one way or another.

Peter would come home, and she would be happy. She would have a life still running that he could come back to. He would feel guilty if she didn’t keep living.

She grit her teeth and bore the pain day in and day out. Tony, Pepper, and Rhodey just made it all a little more bearable.

*

Steve’s therapy sessions were continuing to be productive. Doctor Sterling had gotten him to start journaling, and writing thing out helped him sort through all his thoughts. Originally, writing in a book had felt a little strange. He hadn’t been ones for journals back in his time, and now he felt even stranger just writing the events of the day down.

But after a week or two, it began to feel normal. He wasn’t just cataloging events, he was discussing how he felt about those events. He would, sometimes, share with Doctor Sterling particularly interesting events or ones that he still couldn’t put an emotion to.

She had told him before – sometimes putting one singular emotion to something isn’t the way to do it. Sometimes it did more harm than good. That didn’t stop Steve from trying.

The truth was, he didn’t want to start putting multiple emotions on things. That would mean they were complicated, and he liked the world as it had always been to him – simple. The forties, for example, had been a simple time. You helped with the war, and society told you flat out whether it liked you or not. It wasn’t hidden in layers of politics – or, maybe it was. Just not as many.

Either way, the more emotion he put in things the more he had to deal with. He didn’t have time to sit around parsing out his feelings.

“What do you mean?”

“I could die at any second. Why waste my time with feelings?”

Doctor Sterling nodded, marking something on her notes. “Would you say this feeling that you’re going to die at any second is one that follows you around a lot?”

“I mean, it’s true, isn’t it? I could walk out of here, and come face to face with someone dangerous. My next mission could have me dead in the water before it even starts.”

“Dead in the water… that’s an interesting choice of words, Mister Rogers.”

“I just mean I could die before anything gets going.”

“Still, you said dead in the water.” She gave him a look. “What kinds of exercise don’t you like?”

Steve shrugged, both knowing where she was going with this and pretending he didn’t. Maybe, if he tried hard enough, she wouldn’t bring it up. “I don’t like body weight exercises. They’re too repetitive. Running when it’s too hot out isn’t fun, either – I end up drenched in sweat.

“Swimming definitely is my least favorite, though.”

“Why is that?”

Steve shrugged. “Because it is. I wasn’t good at it before, and now I should be good at it, but I’m really not.”

“Why is that?”

Sometimes therapy was these repeating questions, and they usually lead to some kind of revelation and it wasn’t something Steve was usually comfortable with.

“I mean, I’m just not comfortable in large bodies of water.”

Doctor Sterling gestured for him to elaborate, but he could feel the piece of stone coming up his throat, the thing that kept him from talking about water, among other things.

“Let’s just… can we talk about something else?”

Doctor Sterling gave him a look. “Alright.”

It felt like all the times his mother hadn’t told him off for something, just given him that disappointed look. Maybe he would start trying to dig into that feeling, but right now it wasn’t what he was either interested in doing, or felt he _could_ do.

Seeing his look, Doctor Sterling softened. “You’ll confront these things in your own time, Steve. But for now, I want you to tell me what you want to work on specifically.”

“Alright.”

*

Natasha sighed, stretching out her limbs. Old wounds never really stopped hurting, you just got used to it after a while. Stretching them out could relieve some of the ache, but they would always be there.

Especially ones that landed hits on your psyche.

She tried not to think about that, though, as she listened to Clint.

“I’m glad I’ve got my kids here, but I’m just… It’s not jealousy, really. I just…”

“You wish you could do what Stark’s doing.”

Clint nodded, shifting his gear off. He had long since stopped caring how much of him Natasha saw. Budapest did a lot for that.

“I don’t want to take it away from him, really. I just wish I knew how he managed everything.”

“He doesn’t.” Natasha shrugged. “He prioritizes Morgan, and that means other things take a backseat to Morgan’s well-being and him being involved in her life.”

Clint didn’t look convinced. “He still does missions.”

“A lot fewer than you or I.”

“We’ve always been the bulk of Avengers missions. Anything that didn’t require the ability to stop the literal apocalypse was us, and maybe Steve, if Fury was looking for bonus PR points.”

Natasha felt an old wound – the stab wound from her fight with Barnes in DC – throb a bit at the reminder of Fury and what she had done. She should have known better than to dump all that information on the web. She read about and saw some of the fallout in the weeks following. She had cost people and entire families their lives.

She couldn’t afford to let herself fall into the trap of least resistance again. It was easier to dump the files online. She had been trained for covert action, so bringing this stuff to light shouldn’t have been hard – censor names that weren’t relevant and leak to the nearest high-powered journalism agency and she would have been fine – but she had thought only of that moment. Of the immediate concern.

To be fair, Project Insight was about to launch. But she still should have kept her head about her.

She wouldn’t make that mistake again.

Sighing, she glanced at Clint. “Either way, we’ve already got Stark doing it. Tell Steve you want more time with your children and don’t cave when he tries to say ‘no’. You’re allowed to spend time with your family. Given they lost their mother, I’d encourage it.”

“It’s hard to think it’s really been so long.”

“It hasn’t. People are dicks and expect you to mourn on their schedule.”

Clint laughed. “That’s true enough. Anyway, thanks for the spar.”

Natasha nodded. “Give my best to the kids.”

“Come up and tell them yourself.” Clint smiled at her. “They’ve been begging to have you over for dinner again, now that you only live one floor down from them.”

Natasha returned the smile. “I’ll be up in an hour.”

Clint walked out, waving as he did. “See you then!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once more, no editing done. It's past midnight here though, and I still have a bunch of stuff I need to do because once classes start this week I'll be _dead_. 10 pages of a 20 page research paper due on Thursday, and I still have to get all my sources together, but the databases aren't giving me anything to work with. 
> 
> Anyway, no one wants to hear me complain about college! 
> 
> Thank you for reading, and [come say hi!](https://putmymusiconshuffleidareyou.tumblr.com)


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony starts putting together the pieces after a strange interaction.

They had a lead, but they had no plan. The amount of arguing this had caused was enough to almost split them again if it weren’t for Shuri shooting off one of her gloves into the air, calling attention to her.

“There is no point in arguing over the best way to prematurely solve our problem. We must continue working until our plan will actually work, and part of that involves not going across the universe to take the fight to Thanos.

“Some of you may have forgotten, but while we endeavor to save half the universe, our responsibility is to Earth. We will bring the fight here when we are ready. Until then, we have people who rely on us not only to fight off whoever and whatever Thanos leaves behind or sends back, but to help them rebuild their infrastructure, and to navigate the consequences of the Snap. We should be working harder for them, first, and then worrying about our oncoming fight.”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself, Princess.”

Tony had nodded at her, and while Rogers didn’t look comfortable with it, he was agreeing.

“Where do we start?”

Shuri stood straighter as the onus of her statement came back onto her. “We start with the places of the world most hit. It didn’t take evenly from country to country, but what remains of the UN is assimilating groups into other states as we speak.

“There are some where the leaders have taken advantage of catastrophe to consolidate their own power, though, and we must help the people who are fleeing those countries to find safe refuge abroad.”

Steve shifted. “I thought we were supposed to stay out of other nations’ business. That’s why the Accords were made, which is why we all ended up fighting to begin with.

“Are we really going to jump in?”

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing.” Shuri glanced at Tony, who was standing up and walking, that swagger of his public façade coming forward. “You were against the Accords and now you’re arguing that we don’t help people that actually have asked for our help – that the UN has signed off on us helping?”

“I’m just saying. We’re in a precarious position, and we can’t afford to have anyone wrapped up in legalities and bureaucracy.”

“Well don’t worry about the legalities, because this time it’s all legal.” Tony shook his head, and Shuri could see the exasperation, genuine under the manufactured anger. “Suit up and get on the jet.”

Shuri was glad to see the meeting split up. She had been in on the emergency security council meeting, offering refuge for any that were near enough to get to Wakanda. It wasn’t the most popular policy she had put forth, but it was one that people saw the need for. The meeting, however, had been what Tony would have called a ‘shitshow’. That was putting it mildly.

The Russians had been left scrambling after their leader had disappeared in the snap, and part of that ended up being the perfect platform for an even more virulent and dictatorial demagogue to take power. He had been against the movement of people into countries, and had been very against the use of the Avengers. It was only by an act of Bast that they were able to get the dignitary from Russia to listen and vote in favor of letting the Avengers help resettle various refugee populations, offering them protection from local groups that were another group trying to take advantage of the chaos.

Shuri had always been one to like the idea of a right and a wrong. It made the world simple. Her brother had been the philosopher of the two of them, she had been the scientist. While together they had been a force of nature, she was quickly learning that there was no right and wrong with humans. There were only people making decisions. Some were altruistic and would try to help, and others would turn the suffering of others into their own gain.

She wished she hadn’t had to learn that, wished she could go back to a simpler world where her brother ruled Wakanda.

But that wasn’t the reality she lived in, and if there was one thing she knew the right answer for in life, it was that reality trumped her dreams.

So instead she stood, preparing to suit herself up and move forward with the plans.

*

Staying in Wakanda felt wrong. He had a daughter back in New York, but he was needed here.

He wasn’t going to complain, though, because that would do no one any good. He was only here a few weeks – there were soldiers that were gone far longer from their newborn children – and he was doing a lot of good.

Shuri had brought in close to a thousand refugees in the first few days. They were all being settled in the border villages while they were processed and given documents that would help them in the Wakandan society. There was a lot to do for them, but getting them the necessary paperwork was going to put them in a solid position for the job markets in Wakanda, where Shuri was already working to find ways to use whatever skills they brought to the table without impacting Wakandan employment.

Sometimes losing half of the world worked out, as macabre as the thought felt.

The days were long, so usually Tony slept solid.

This time, though, he had another one of the dreams. He didn’t have another word for them – vision, maybe, but even that felt strange to consider.

Peter was walking at first. He didn’t look like Peter at first, and it took Tony seeing him smile at something off to the side – something hazy Tony couldn’t quite see – to really get any clue that the man in front of him was Peter.

Because this wasn’t the boy that had followed him to the space donut to fight a mad alien that was hellbent on killing half the universe. This was a man, a young one, yes, but a man. He stood tall, and he walked without cowing to anyone he saw. He was relaxed in his confidence, like it was completely natural on him.

Beyond his carriage, there were other things that had Tony hung up on the differences, the things that made him hesitate to call the man Peter, even after he heard the whisper of a voice that sounded slightly deeper, but so achingly familiar.

Peter’s hair was longer, for one. It came down almost to his shoulders, and he had it tied back with a small cord. He walked with a slight limp, something that had Tony fretting, even if part of him considered the images to be fake. His clothes were old fashioned, and were somewhat tight on him, he was taller. He had grown in the last year and change.

It wasn’t until he finally accepted this might be Peter, an actual vision of the boy that he had lost, that the scene changed. He could still see Peter (the clothes this time were looser, like he’d gotten new ones to fit him), but he was further removed from him. There was something keeping him from hearing Peter, or really knowing what was going on other than a fight and a loud screeching sound.

There was a white figure in front of him, the only flesh part of it being the left leg.

“He’s your boy, isn’t he?”

Tony didn’t know what to say, so he nodded. The figure only returned the gesture, an eerie grin splitting his face.

“He’s admirable, I’ll give him that. He’s learning everything he’s supposed to.

“I’ll never understand why she got involved, but I must say the Soul Stone knows how to pick some interesting humans.”

Tony didn’t remember the rest of the dream, just that he had seen Peter.

He had _seen_ him. He had seen Peter for weeks now – watched him fight a strange creature, talk to a man with a strong enough presence that even weeks out from the last time he had appeared, just as muted as most of Tony’s dreams, so no voice to match the face – he still had his face in his mind.

He had been seeing Peter every few weeks, sometimes as long as a few months between visions, and he had doubted it.

His kid always managed the impossible. 

*

The work in Wakanda stretched out about three extra weeks, but seeing all those people safe from dangerous situations and in or en route to countries that would (with luck) protect their rights was a solid job.

Still, walking in the door and seeing Pepper, asleep with work on the couch, and being able to walk to Morgan’s room and see her asleep in her crib was the best feeling. He had lost a lot, but he still had _family_. He still had something that was so integral, so deeply coded in him. He had suppressed it a long time, but now he could admit it – he had always wanted this. Had always wanted a partner at his side, and a child (or two, or three, but he would have to talk to Pep about that first) that he could just love.

After his parents, then Afghanistan, then Obie, he had told himself he would just mess a child up, and that it would be unfair to bring one into the world while he was Iron Man. But retirement post-Thanos was still an option, and one he would gladly take.

So, he walked in and watched Morgan a few minutes.

“I will always do everything in my power to protect you.”

When he slept that night, it was a deep sleep.

And when he woke up, it was with the ghost of that garish grin in his mind, but no memory of the conversation.

*

For Steve, the return to Wakanda had hurt. He had lost his best friend there after fighting so hard to keep him safe.

But more than that, it had been rewarding, which is what Doctor Sterling had him focusing on the last few sessions they had. Lately, he could feel it that his mind was clearer and his heart was lighter. Therapy, after a long and tedious journey, was finally helping.

Maybe that’s why he made the decision to start studying psychology via an online college. Tony had heard him talk about it once and offered support of any kind that he could, supporting Steve’s “traipsing into the modern world, even if it was the _humanities_ ” as Tony called it. For all that he joked about it being a soft science and the like, though, it was clear Tony respected it. Beyond his own push for psych evals for all of them, as well as therapy, he had pulled Steve aside later and told him that he was glad for him. That he would do what he could to help, and that he hoped Steve liked the field of study.

It was a nice gesture. It was an olive branch in its own right.

Steve had accepted that he and Tony might never be the friends they once were, but friendly, supportive acquaintances?

Steve could learn to deal with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going through this one day and editing. Probably when I decide to read it, because I write stuff that I want to read so that one day I can go back and do just that. I've posted the link a couple times, but eh. I'm a bit lazy tonight.
> 
> I love you all, though! Thank you for reading!


	11. Chapter 11

Ned kept the internship, ultimately. He was getting paid a decent amount for it, and with his mother having been dusted in the snap, their family was a bit strapped for cash. That didn’t mean, however, that he visited with the Starks often. In fact, after that first time, he found himself avoiding the invitations Pepper sent or circumventing them with other extracurriculars. He didn’t really want all the reminders of Peter.

As a result, he was far busier than he had been before, but it was doing something he hadn’t expected – helping. He spent less time wondering if Peter felt it when he died, if May was doing alright (though they had a standing monthly dinner to catch-up), or if his mother was okay.

He spent so little time focused on that and so much more focused on the work he was doing, on managing his time, and on making sure he wasn’t falling behind. Was there a short period where it seemed impossible? Yes. But he was doing it now, and that was what mattered.

His school was quieter now, with so many gone. There were clubs (including Academic Decathlon) that had been entirely shut down as a result of Thanos. Flash didn’t even bother people as much. There were rumors that both his parents had been nabbed in the Snap, and as a result, he was stuck with a relative he barely knew. Even if it wasn’t entirely true (high school gossip was notorious for being eerily accurate or horrendously false, after all) the fact remained – Flash had backed into a corner and barely came out anymore.

Sometimes, Ned would kill for Flash to start picking on him again, if only for some of that sense of normalcy.

MJ hadn’t been picked up in the Snap, but her family had. She was staying with Ned for the time being, pretending it didn’t bother her that she had to rely on someone else, even though he had woken up a couple of times to hear her crying, missing her parents and brother. Despite seeming made of stone, she had been cracking in small bits here and there around Ned.

“Do you ever miss him?”

“Who?”

There had been so many people lost, it was almost a legitimate question. Even Michelle knew he was playing dumb, though, because she rolled her eyes. “Dumbass Numero Uno.”

Ned rolled his eyes. She was so worried about people getting close before, and now that her family was gone, it had gotten even worse. “Of course, I do. He was my best friend.”

The school had to cancel almost the entirety of their senior year as they scrambled to address the faculty issue. Being almost nineteen and stuck in high school sucked.

“He was…” Michelle sighed. “He was the first person I came out to.”

“Huh?”

She shook her head. “I’m gay. My mom was super religious, and I didn’t want to tell her. Peter could tell something was up, though, and he gave me that damn look, the kicked puppy one?” Ned nodded. He was familiar with Peter’s less than convenient facial expressions. “I ended up spilling to him and he just smiled and said that even if it didn’t work out, he would have my back.

“I don’t even know if he knew how much that meant to me.”

Ned sighed. “He was always like that.”

Peter hadn’t come out at school. Coming out as bi to May, Ben, and Ned had been hard enough on him, then he got wrapped into Spider-Man. He had never bothered telling anyone at school, and after having shown up to Homecoming (though not actually attending – still the coolest school event Ned ever went to) with Liz Allen had everyone assuming he was straight.

But, since he wasn’t out, Ned wasn’t about to out him to MJ.

“You’re gonna be okay, Michelle.”

She sighed. “Yeah. One day.”

*

Clint sighed, watching Cap work a bag. “You don’t have to train twenty-four-seven, you know. You can take a break.

“Actually, I was talking to Doctor Cho the other day, and they’re encouraged!”

Steve rolled his eyes. “I’m fine.”

Clint shook his head. “No. I don’t buy it for a second. Come on, Cap, I have a ten-year-old. A ten-year-old that’s a way better liar than you are.”

Steve sighed. “I’ll work it out on my own time. I promise.”

“That’s all I ask.” Clint shrugged. “We’re here for you.”

*

May and Rhodey weren’t sure what to do, so they put it off. As responsible as the two liked to think they were, this was unknown territory for both of them.

Morgan was coming up on six months old. By the time their own kid was born – if they kept it – she would be an entire year old, plus a few weeks.

They couldn’t ignore it forever, though. They had gone out to dinner, and May had been about to look at wine when Rhodey had asked.

“Is that safe?”

They had both stopped, realizing what him asking meant. It meant that at least one of them had thought about keeping the baby. They had been dating nearly eight months, they weren’t necessarily ready emotionally for the child, and their relationship certainly hadn’t had a lot of time to get into that space, but here they were, considering it.

“Um. Probably not.”

“I didn’t mean to be controlling or anything…”

May shook her head. “You weren’t.”

There was a stiff silence in the following moments before she finally broached the topic again. “Is it crazy that I kind of _want_ to keep it?”

Rhodey’s smile carried too much in it to be truly a smile, but there was still something in it brighter than a grimace. “I don’t think so.”

*

She felt guilty, when she decided to keep the child for good. Her and Rhodey had talked about it, and he had made it abundantly clear that it was entirely up to her. Her body, her choice.

She had wanted children, and then she had gotten Peter. As sad as the circumstances were, she still had sweet memories with him. Sweet memories of him. She was anxious about having a child now, but on the forefront of her mind was concern – what would Peter think? If Tony succeeded and brought everyone back, what would Peter think that May and Rhodey had a kid, especially so soon after he had been dusted?

It ate her up a bit, even when she talked to Tony about it.

Tony had been happy for her, had made jokes about their children growing up together. He had made it clear – no matter what happened between her and his best friend, by virtue of being who she was, and by virtue of having done so much for Peter, she was more than welcome into his circle.

He had also been her biggest support when it came to the emotional side of things. She had been so hesitant to reach out with her concerns and worries with Rhodey that, until he had figured out what was happening and they had sat down to talk it out, Tony had always been there, a hot tea and some kind words to help her figure things out.

Being a father the past few months had mellowed him out some, according to Pepper and Natasha, but May knew that there had been a part of him that liked doing this kind of thing for a while now. He had done it countless times for Peter, and had always extended the offer to Pepper.

Pepper was her guide on a lot of this, as well. She had a frame of reference, having maintained a fairly decent friendship with Pepper since the first dinner she had with Tony, for what was coming. Things might be different for her – different people, different bodies, after all – but it was a starting point.

May sighed, looking into the mirror.

“You can do this. You raised Peter, you can raise this child, too.”

There would be unique challenges with this baby. First, being biracial in America would mean it would have an entirely different set of experiences from her. Experiences Rhodey might be able to help prepare it for, but that May would have no clue how to handle. She’d have to learn as she went, taking cues from Rhodey and others who lived that reality.

The other challenge would be raising an infant. Peter was a toddler when she and Ben got him, she hadn’t dealt with many sleepless nights once he started reconciling his parents’ deaths.

There would be others, too, she was sure, but she couldn’t predict them all now.

“You can do this.”

She would keep telling herself that until the day she believed it.

*

Tony was ecstatic when he heard the news, which was why he immediately started working on a place for May and Rhodey in the tower. Rhodey had been staying already, but he had appropriated a guest room and called it a day, forcing FRIDAY to remove any plans Tony made for a private floor.

_“Someone’s gotta look after you. I’ll take just a room any day, if it means keeping you safe.”_

It had taken a twenty-minute argument for the two to settle on, if May agreed to come to the tower for her safety, them staying in the floor directly below the penthouse, with stairs that would connect the two with relative ease so Rhodey could still keep an eye on Tony. It went unsaid that they were sure May would join Pepper and Rhodey in that endeavor, if only because she had years of experience as a mother and would easily pick up on someone not taking care of themselves.

When May had said she didn’t want to leave the apartment – if only because Peter had grown up there, and all their memories were there, they sat down for another compromise. She could stay at the tower whenever she wanted, and was more than welcome to even move in, but would keep the apartment. Tony had even offered (and been shot down) to comp the rent if she moved in. If Tony was honest, he didn’t want her getting rid of it either. Peter would need every support system he could get, even the ones that came in the form of memories of happier days.

Every day was one day closer to when he could put her first child back in her arms, and that was becoming more of a motivator than even just seeing Peter alive and well had been. Knowing he was alive now, if getting into mischief and trouble, was enough to renew some of the fire in him whenever it started to dim.

Peter was going to come back, and then he’d tell Tony all about what he had been doing in the interim. Until that day, Tony had a responsibility to fight and claw his way to Thanos for a rematch that wouldn’t end the same way again. They had a team now, as haphazard and still somewhat dysfunctional as it was.

They may not have saved the Earth this time, but they were damn well going to avenge it and bring back everyone and anyone they could.

That was what they had always been meant for.

*

The dream, or vision, Tony had the first night May stayed was more memorable, even if it seemed nothing was happening in it. Peter was ducking around corners, following people with little to no sense for how to stay inconspicuous.

His clothing, now replaced with something better fitting, was still ridiculously old-fashioned, and his hair was still too long (Tony half wanted to reach in there and tell him to get a haircut, or at least wear it back a bit nicer), but watching him there was still something undoubtedly _Peter_ in the movements and the decisions he made. When the vision faded, and the scene changed, Peter was sitting in a chair, stiller than Tony had ever seen him, and was poring over books, speaking or arguing with the dark-haired man from other visions. Tony couldn’t be sure which. The audio cut in a moment, but all Tony caught was, “By alchemic definition, I’m classified as a chimera. I should have a right to know what these people are getting up to!” before it cut out.

The white figure showed up again, sitting in the air to Tony’s left. “He’s doing well.”

“Who even are you?”

“Hmph. He’ll tell you, I’m sure.”

The leg still creeped him out. One flesh part. There had to be a reason.

Evidently, the figure had caught him looking. “Wondering about my leg, I see.

“Hmm. Well, that’s another story for Peter to tell you. I’d say the long and short of it is Equivalent Exchange, though.”

“What?”

“Equivalent Exchange. For something to be made or acquired, something of equal value must be given. Peter understood the concept better after his little crash course, but that’s to be expected.”

“If you hurt him-”

The figure smirked at him. “Oh, he was fine in the end.”

Tony woke up before the conversation could continue, but the sharp feeling in his gut told him that Peter being ‘fine’ was debatable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again - no editing. Just assume that from now on I guess, lol. I have no time! Urgh.


End file.
